New research shows that 94% of lawyers use Artificial Intelligence (AI) for legal work, with 74% using it at least once a week and 34% using it every day.
One in 10 (10%) of the 543 legal professionals surveyed by LexisNexis for its report Scaling up: The AI-dependent lawyer said they depend on AI to do their job.
Three quarters of respondents (77%), however, believe AI is causing clients or the public to misinterpret the law.
Accuracy remains the profession’s biggest concern. A majority of 83% worried about lawyers relying on inaccurate or fabricated information. Other concerns include confidential data leakage (53%) and becoming too reliant on AI (52%).
Legal research remains the leading use case, with 69% currently using AI for this work, followed by document summarisation at 62%, while drafting and document review are both at 53%. Most respondents (81%) said they feel more comfortable using AI when it is grounded in legal sources, up from 72% in January 2026 and 70% this time last year.
The proportion of organisations with AI embedded in strategy and operations has risen sharply, from 17% in January 2026 to 29% today.
The findings also suggested that these AI strategies could have an impact on talent retention. Almost half (46%) of lawyers say their career would be negatively affected if their organisation failed to fully embrace AI, up from 28% this time last year. Meanwhile, 22% say they would consider leaving an organisation that failed to embrace AI, up from 16% a year ago.
More than half (55%) of lawyers now believe law firms will change how they bill because of AI, compared with 40% in January 2025.
Dylan Brown of LexisNexis, the report’s editor, said: “The findings point to a legal profession that is becoming more comfortable with AI, but more demanding about the trust, accuracy and authority behind it. As adoption accelerates, lawyers increasingly want AI tools that support rather than replace professional judgement.”
