AI AUTOMATION FOR LAW FIRMS

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Built for how attorneys actually work

Your highest-paid professionals spend more than half their time on work that never required a law degree. We build custom AI systems that give attorneys their time back—and their margins.

40%of attorney time goes to tasks that could be automated
EXHIBIT A: THE MODERN LAW FIRM TIME AUDIT
Partner billing rate:$650/hour
Hours worked this week:52
Hours actually billed:38
Revenue captured:$24,700
Revenue lost:$9,100
Time spent on:
Substantive legal work42%
Document management23%
Administrative tasks19%
Time entry reconstruction16%
FINDING: 58% of partner time is not practicing law.
The Record

IN THE MATTER OF:

The Modern Law Firm

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The economics of law practice are shifting. Firms that adapt will thrive. Firms that don't will struggle to attract talent, retain clients, and maintain margins.

1.37%

Utilization Rate

Average attorney utilization rate across all firm sizes

(Clio Legal Trends Report, 2024)

2.89%

Collection Rate

Average collection rate, meaning 11% of billed work goes unpaid

(Clio Legal Trends Report, 2024)

3.40%

Associate Turnover

Annual turnover rate at mid-size firms

(NALP Foundation, 2024)

4.70%

AI Transformation

Legal leaders who say AI will transform practice within 5 years

(ILTA Technology Survey, 2024)

5.$150k+

Departure Cost

Average cost to replace a mid-level associate

(Am Law 200 Data, 2024)

6.47%

AFA Preference

of corporate clients now prefer alternative fee arrangements

(ACC CLO Survey, 2024)

The margin squeeze

Clients are demanding more for less. Alternative fee arrangements are becoming the norm. Fixed-fee matters leave no room for inefficiency. Firms billing by the hour are caught between client pressure and rising costs.

47%AFA Growth

of clients now prefer alternative fee arrangements over hourly billing

(ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey, 2024)

The talent war

Associates are voting with their feet. Burnout from document review marathons, endless billing cycles, and weekend discovery reviews is driving the best talent to in-house roles or firms with better work-life balance.

40%Associate Turnover

annual turnover rate at mid-size firms, up from 28% five years ago

(NALP Foundation, 2024)

The AI moment

This isn't future speculation. Firms are deploying AI for document review, contract analysis, and legal research today. Early adopters are capturing efficiency gains while late movers watch their margins erode.

70%AI Priority

of legal leaders say AI adoption is a top-3 priority for the next 2 years

(ILTA Technology Survey, 2024)

Depositions from the Field

Testimony from attorneys, associates, and staff about a typical week in practice.

MONDAY 7:30AM
Q:

What happened when you opened your email this morning?

A:

Partner opens email to find 50,000 new documents from discovery. Trial is in 6 weeks.

“We'll need all hands on this. There go everyone's weekends for the next month.”

THE HIDDEN COST:

3 associates at $350/hr reviewing documents that AI could pre-classify in hours

TUESDAY 2PM
Q:

Walk us through your end-of-day routine.

A:

Senior associate realizes they forgot to log time for three client calls last week. Tries to reconstruct from memory.

“I know I worked on the Chen matter... was that Monday or Tuesday? Half hour or full hour?”

THE HIDDEN COST:

$15,000+ in unbilled time per attorney annually from incomplete time capture

WEDNESDAY 9PM
Q:

Why were you still at the office at 9pm?

A:

Associate manually searching through 200 prior briefs looking for relevant language for a motion.

“I know we made this exact argument in another case. Where was it?”

THE HIDDEN COST:

4 hours searching for work product that already exists somewhere in the firm

THURSDAY 11AM
Q:

How did the client meeting go?

A:

Partner in meeting with potential client, manually pulling case examples from memory.

“Didn't we handle something similar for the automotive client? I can't remember the details...”

THE HIDDEN COST:

Lost credibility and potential engagement because institutional knowledge is trapped in heads

FRIDAY 6PM
Q:

What keeps you at your desk on Friday evenings?

A:

Paralegal stays late compiling exhibit lists and bates stamping documents for production.

“Another Friday night staring at document numbers. At least the coffee is fresh.”

THE HIDDEN COST:

Skilled paralegal doing mechanical work at $150/hr that software could do instantly

Counts of the Indictment

Every inefficiency shows up in three places: margins, people, or clients.

COUNT I: DISCOVERY IS DROWNING YOUR ASSOCIATES

THE CHARGE:

Associates spend 8+ hours per matter on first-pass review. AI handles 85% of classification decisions with higher accuracy.

EVIDENCE:

8 hoursper matter for initial document classification
$2,800 per matter in associate time

WITNESS TESTIMONY:

“We had 47,000 documents and six weeks to trial. My senior associate was making privilege calls at 2am. That stopped being quality control weeks ago.”

COUNT II: 12% OF YOUR REVENUE WALKS OUT THE DOOR

THE CHARGE:

10-15% of billable time goes unrecorded. For a 40-attorney firm at $400/hour, that is $2.4M in annual leakage.

EVIDENCE:

10-15%of billable time never makes it to an invoice
$50k-150k per attorney annually

WITNESS TESTIMONY:

“I billed 6.2 hours yesterday. I was here for eleven. I genuinely don't know where the rest went, and I'm too tired to figure it out.”

COUNT III: 40 YEARS OF PRECEDENT, ZERO INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY

THE CHARGE:

Associates search 4+ hours per matter for prior work. Partners carry all the institutional knowledge in their heads.

EVIDENCE:

4+ hourssearching for relevant prior work per new matter
$1,400+ in attorney time per search

WITNESS TESTIMONY:

“We've litigated this exact issue three times. My second-year just spent a weekend researching it from scratch because nobody knew where to look.”

COUNT IV: LAW SCHOOL TAUGHT ANALYSIS, NOT MAIL MERGE

THE CHARGE:

Brief assembly takes 6 hours of cut-paste-format work. Your highest-paid talent doing your lowest-value tasks.

EVIDENCE:

6 hoursaverage brief assembly time
$2,100 in attorney time per brief

WITNESS TESTIMONY:

“I have a Stanford JD formatting headers at midnight. There has to be a better use of $400,000 in education.”

COUNT V: NEW CLIENT = 4 HOURS BEFORE ANYONE BILLS

THE CHARGE:

Conflict checks, engagement letters, matter setup. Clients wait days while admin work piles up.

EVIDENCE:

3-4 hoursfrom client call to matter open
$1,000+ per new matter in soft costs

WITNESS TESTIMONY:

“The client called Thursday. We couldn't bill until Tuesday. They called opposing counsel on Monday asking why we hadn't started.”

COUNT VI: PARTNERS BILLING $600/HOUR DOING ACCOUNTING

THE CHARGE:

Month-end means 8-12 hours of time review, write-offs, and narrative editing. Per partner. Every month.

EVIDENCE:

8-12 hoursper partner per month on billing review
$4,000-6,000 monthly in partner time

WITNESS TESTIMONY:

“I went to trial last week. This week I'm reviewing time entries for typos. The economics of this are insane.”

AI automation by practice area

Every practice area has unique workflows, pain points, and automation opportunities. Here's how AI transforms work across the most common specialties.

Discovery-intensive work with tight deadlines. Document review is the biggest time sink, followed by motion practice and trial prep.

DiscoveryMotion PracticeTrial PrepAppeals

Workflows

Document Collection & Review40-200 hrs/matter

ESI collection, processing, first-pass review, privilege review

Automation
85%
Motion Drafting8-20 hrs/motion

Research, drafting, cite checking, formatting

Automation
60%
Deposition Prep10-30 hrs/deposition

Document review, outline creation, exhibit organization

Automation
50%
Trial Preparation100+ hrs/trial

Exhibit prep, witness outlines, demonstratives

Automation
40%

Benchmarks

Avg hours/matter150-500 hours
Avg cost/matter$75,000-$250,000
SourceAm Law Litigation Survey 2024

Priority Opportunities

AI-Powered Document Reviewcritical
Time savings70-85%
Cost savings$50k-$150k per matter
high
Brief Research & Assemblyhigh
Time savings50-70%
Cost savings$2k-$5k per brief
high
Deposition Summary Generationmedium
Time savings60-80%
Cost savings$500-$2k per deposition
medium

Findings of Fact

What this looks like in practice

Example scenarios based on common law firm challenges. Numbers reflect industry benchmarks.

47,000 documents. Six weeks to trial. Three associates about to burn out.

40 attorneys|Litigation boutique|D.C. metro

Challenge

Opposing counsel produced a massive document dump two weeks before the discovery deadline. The partner had six weeks to trial, three associates available, and a client already frustrated with legal fees. Traditional review would take 4-6 weeks of weekend work and cost the client $180,000 in review fees alone.

Documents47,000
Traditional review estimate$180,000
Time to trial6 weeks
Available associates3

Outcome

AI-powered first-pass review completed in 72 hours. Associates spent their time on the 3,200 documents that actually required attorney judgment. Total review cost: $42,000. Associates went home at 6pm. Client got a $138,000 savings. Partner slept through the night.

“I thought we'd be living at the office for a month. Instead, we finished before lunch on Thursday.”

$2.4 million in recovered time. One system. Twelve months.

18 attorneys|Regional full-service|Northern Virginia

Challenge

The managing partner knew time capture was a problem but thought it was a discipline issue. Exit interviews told a different story: attorneys were working 10-11 hour days but billing 6-7. Not because they were slow, but because the daily time entry burden was so painful that everyone rounded down and forgot entries. The real problem was invisible revenue walking out the door.

Attorneys18
Average worked hours/day10.5
Average billed hours/day6.8
Unbilled time (annual)$2.4M

Outcome

Automatic time tracking captured activity across email, documents, and meetings. AI-drafted narratives reduced end-of-day entry to 5 minutes. First month recovered $47,000 in previously unbilled time. Year one total recovery: $2.4 million. Realization rate improved from 87% to 94%.

“We thought our attorneys needed discipline. They needed tools. The system paid for itself before the second invoice.”

Founding partner retiring. 40 years of precedent about to walk out the door.

65 attorneys|Regional full-service|D.C. metro

Challenge

The founding partner who built the employment practice was retiring. He carried 40 years of case strategy, client relationships, and precedent in his head. Associates would regularly walk into his office to ask "Didn't we handle something like this before?" The firm was about to lose not just a partner, but their institutional memory.

Years of experience40
Prior matters in his head2,000+
Associates asking weekly15-20
Knowledge at riskPriceless

Outcome

Knowledge management system indexed 40 years of briefs, memos, and strategy documents. AI-powered search surfaces relevant precedent in seconds. Associates now find prior work 95% faster than asking partners. Retiring partner's expertise is preserved and accessible. New associates ramp up in months, not years.

“I was worried I'd be forgotten. Instead, my best work helps every associate who joins the firm.”

The Remedy

How we fix it

Four workflows, four custom-built AI systems. Each one addresses a specific pain point with measurable before-and-after results.

Associates spend weeks on first-pass review that AI completes in hours with higher accuracy.

AI pre-classifies documents by relevance and privilege, surfacing only the decisions that require attorney judgment.

Before8-40 hrs/matter

Weekend after weekend lost to document review. Associates burning out. Partners questioning why they went to law school.

After1-4 hrs/matter

Associates focus on substantive legal work. Document review becomes quality control, not brute force.

85% savings

“Imagine finishing discovery review before lunch. Associates actually going home at 6pm.”

Exhibit D

Qualifications of Expert Witness

Building AI for law firms isn't like building AI for any other industry. Ethics rules, privilege concerns, and regulatory requirements demand specialized understanding.

I. Ethics & Compliance

Attorney-Client Privilege

Our systems are designed with privilege protection as a first principle. AI classification includes privilege flags, and workflows ensure human review of all privilege determinations.

Model Rules of Professional Conduct

We understand competence requirements (Rule 1.1), confidentiality obligations (Rule 1.6), and supervision duties (Rules 5.1, 5.3). Our systems support compliance, not circumvent it.

State Bar Technology Competence

Over 40 states have adopted technology competence as part of ethical practice. We help firms meet this obligation with practical, secure AI implementation.

Data Security Standards

ABA Formal Opinion 477R and state-specific requirements inform our security architecture. Client data never touches shared AI models without explicit consent and appropriate safeguards.

II. Tech Stack Familiarity

Clio

Practice Management

NetDocuments

Document Management

iManage

Document Management

Relativity

E-Discovery

Westlaw

Legal Research

LexisNexis

Legal Research

Microsoft 365

Productivity

Aderant

Billing

III. Data Sources & Research

  1. 1.Clio Legal Trends Report
  2. 2.ILTA Technology Survey
  3. 3.Am Law 100/200 Data
  4. 4.Georgetown Law Center on the Legal Profession
  5. 5.ABA Technology Survey
  6. 6.NALP Foundation Research
  7. 7.ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey

IV. Regulatory Context

ABA Model Rules

Our systems support compliance with Rules 1.1 (Competence), 1.6 (Confidentiality), 5.1 (Supervision), and 5.3 (Non-lawyer assistants).

State Bar Requirements

40+ states now include technology competence in ethical obligations. We help firms meet these requirements with practical implementation guidance.

Data Privacy Laws

GDPR, CCPA, and state-specific privacy laws inform our data handling practices. Client data protection is built into every system we deploy.

Exhibit E

Damages Calculation

Expert Witness Report on Potential Recovery

Firm Parameters

25

Include partners, associates, and of counsel

$400

Blended rate across all attorneys

200

Total hours firm-wide on document review

150

Total new matters opened annually

87%

Percentage of billed time actually collected

Potential Recovery

Time Recovery

2,600 hours/year

Attorneys x 2,080 hrs x 10% unbilled x 50% capture rate

Revenue Recovery

$1,040,000

Time Recovery hours x Average Billing Rate

Document Review Savings

$672,000

Monthly hours x 12 months x 70% automation x Billing Rate

Matter Intake Savings

$67,500

New Matters x 3 hours saved x $150 paralegal rate

Total Annual Savings

$1,779,500

Sum of all recovery categories

ROI Multiple

14.8x

Total Annual Savings / Annual Partnership Investment

Assumptions & Sources

Assumptions

  • 1.Unbilled time capture assumes 10% of worked time goes unbilled (Clio Legal Trends Report)
  • 2.Document review automation assumes 70% efficiency gain (EDRM benchmarks)
  • 3.Matter intake savings assume 3 hours saved per new matter at paralegal rates
  • 4.ROI calculated against Growth Partnership tier
  • 5.Actual results vary based on practice area mix and current efficiency

Sources

  • [1]Clio Legal Trends Report 2024
  • [2]EDRM Document Review Efficiency Study
  • [3]Am Law 200 Billing & Collections Data
  • [4]ILTA Technology ROI Survey

Exhibit F

Stipulated Facts

I. Witness Testimony

We were drowning in discovery documents. Now we're done by lunch. My associates are actually practicing law again.

— Managing Partner, 40-attorney litigation firm, Example scenario

The time capture system paid for itself in the first month. We recovered $47,000 in time that would have gone unbilled.

— Partner, Mid-size corporate practice, Example scenario

Our associates used to spend 4 hours finding prior briefs. Now it's 10 minutes. That's not efficiency—that's transformation.

— Practice Group Leader, Regional full-service firm, Example scenario

I stopped losing sleep over billing. The system catches everything. My realization rate went from 87% to 94%.

— Solo Practitioner, Boutique IP practice, Example scenario

II. Before & After

Partners

Before:

8-12 hours/month on billing review and administrative work

After:

2 hours/month with AI-assisted time review and automated narratives

80% reduction in billing administration

Associates

Before:

Weekends buried in document review, searching for prior work

After:

AI handles first-pass review, surfaces relevant precedent automatically

60% more time on substantive legal work

Paralegals

Before:

Hours on document organization, exhibit prep, and cite checking

After:

Focus on complex document work while AI handles formatting

3x more matters supported per paralegal

The Firm

Before:

Competing on hours worked, losing talent to burnout

After:

Competing on quality and speed, retaining people who work sustainable hours

Higher realization rates, better retention
Rules of Engagement

How we work with law firms

We understand billable hour economics, ethical obligations, and the reality of litigation timelines. We build custom AI systems for firms like yours.

AI Opportunity Assessment

Fixed scope, discussed during consultation
What:

We audit your workflows and identify the 3-4 highest-ROI automation opportunities specific to your practice areas.

Deliverable:

Prioritized opportunity roadmap with economics

2–4 weeks
Learn more

Document Review Pilot

Standalone or as part of partnership
What:

Prove the value on a single matter. See AI-assisted review in action before committing to firm-wide implementation.

Deliverable:

Complete AI-assisted review with metrics comparison

1–2 weeks per matter
Learn more
Most Popular

Growth Partnership

Monthly partnership, scoped to your needs
What:

Embedded engineering partner building custom systems for your firm. Most popular tier for mid-size firms.

Deliverable:

Production AI systems, ongoing enhancement, priority support

Ongoing monthly engagement
Learn more
In the matter of operational efficiency

Motion for Relief

COMES NOW the undersigned firm, by and through its managing partner, and respectfully moves for immediate relief from manual workflows, revenue leakage, and knowledge silos.

Talk to someone who understands law firm economics

Billable hours, realization rates, partner economics. We speak your language.

Prayer for Relief
  1. 1.That attorneys spend their time practicing law, not data entry
  2. 2.That 10-15% of revenue no longer walks out the door
  3. 3.That 40 years of institutional knowledge survives partner transitions
No commitment required
30-minute conversation
Confidential

Or email hello@scalewerk.net directly

Respectfully submitted,

SCALEWERK CONSULTING LLC

Counsel for Operational Excellence