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The legal profession stands at a historic inflection point as artificial intelligence is fundamentally disrupting and reshaping how lawyers research, analyze, and deliver legal services. From routine document review to complex multi-jurisdictional analysis, AI platforms like Vincent AI are transforming traditional legal workflows in ways that were unimaginable only a few years ago.

We're thrilled to share that vLex's VP, Solutions Champion, Damien Riehl, recently joined the American Bar Association Business Law Section’s podcast, The New Frontier, hosted by Jordan L. Fischer. Throughout the conversation, Damien shared an insightful perspective on where we are today with the convergence of AI and the practice of Law, practical examples of how AI is changing the way lawyers work, predictions for 2025, and more.

Listen to the full podcast: The New Frontier: Season 5, Episode 1: Artificial Intelligence and the Practice of Law

The Convergence of AI and the Practice of Law: Where We are Today

To get the conversation started after initial introductions, Jordan asked Damien to talk about where he’s “seen AI and the practice of law really converge over the last couple of years to put us where we are today.”

To put things in perspective, Damien responded by noting that “if you think about the law and every single task of a lawyer, whether you're a litigation lawyer or a transactional lawyer or an advisory lawyer or a regulatory lawyer, every single one of your tasks involves words. That is, you are always ingesting words, analyzing words, and then outputting words. And it turns out that large language models can do all three of those things at superhuman speed and at a postgraduate level. This is the way that GPT-4, you might have heard, beat 90% of humans on the bar exam.”

“And if you think about other professions,” he said, “like doctors… doctors have diagnoses, which is, of course, word-based. But they also have putting a scalpel in somebody's body, which is, of course, not word-based. Unlike medical, though, we don't have scalpels. We as lawyers don't do anything that is not based on words. That is, everything we do is based on words. So that's why I've been speaking all over the world, giving over 120 presentations this year because this is disruptive, and disruptive in a good way if you know what you're doing.”

Damien noted the William Gibson quotation that “The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed.” From his vantage point this “really relates to how lawyers are using AI in legal practice… And the lawyers who get it — that everything we do is word-based, and that large language models are good at words — are really seeing their efficiency, and therefore their profitability, really increase.”

Practical Examples of How AI is Changing the Way Lawyers Work

To illustrate AI's practical impact, Damien shared two compelling examples of how the technology is transforming common legal tasks. A striking example involves multi-jurisdictional research. Traditional 50-state surveys, he explained, have always presented two major challenges: "Number one, they take forever. They take weeks or months to do a good 50-state survey. And number two, that survey is obsolete as soon as the ink is dry. Because there's a new case tomorrow, there's a new statute tomorrow."

With AI tools like Vincent, this process has been expedited. Lawyers can now "literally ask a question and it does all 50 states and it does it in about five minutes — and it bases it on actual non-hallucinated cases, statutes, regulations, and it pulls in yesterday's case.” On top of that, “because it only takes five minutes, you could do it again tomorrow, and next week, and next month. So of course, lawyers that charge flat fees for their 50 state surveys say this is amazing because I can take this weeks- or months-long task, maybe it's a 200-, 300-hour task, shrink it to five minutes. And now that I've shrunk my cost, I could be able to increase my profit margin.”

In illustrating the second example of how AI is changing the way lawyers work, Damien started by pointing back to important concepts from Steve Jobs and Sam Altman: “Steve Jobs said that the best user interface is no user interface and I agree with him. And Sam Altman was asked on stage, what do you think of the ascendance of prompt engineering as a field? And Sam said, oh, I hope that's not a thing in a year because if I'm doing my job correctly, you won't have to be a prompt engineer. All you have to do is ask a question and I'll give you a good answer. So I agree – I agree with both Steve and Sam that if my team at vLex is doing their job correctly, you won't have to be a prompt engineer.”

When using Vincent, Damien highlighted that “All you do is upload a complaint, and then we give you prompts, no prompting necessary. We give you buttons like, what are the claims being alleged? What are the facts supporting those claims? What are they looking for? Are they looking for money or an injunction? And what are legal research questions that are customized to this complaint? And then we go to the work of the lawyer to say, what are legal defenses you could be bound to? And then also, what are questions you could ask your client to help them win?”

Beyond litigation, Damien noted that Vincent does “the same thing for contracts... If you upload a merger agreement, it'll say, oh, this is a merger agreement, and then we give you different buttons. Again, no prompting necessary. And that will output about 150 pages of being able to say, what are the obligations? What are the risks? What are some fallback positions? It will give you good answers that maybe your first-year junior partner would be able to give you. And this is not the end point, but it's a really good beginning point.”

Disrupting the Legal Business Model: AI’s Impact on In-House Legal Departments

Of the many ways AI is reshaping the legal industry, one of the more fundamental facets it’s challenging is the underlying business model of law firms. “And who really likes this,” said Damien, “is the in-house counsel at the Fortune 50 and Fortune 100, that say, this is amazing.”

Taking a practical example of how AI is rebalancing the relationships between in-house counsel and outside law firms, Damien shared that “one of the in-house Fortune 50 companies told me, every time I think about calling a lawyer, I realize, oh, gosh, I could just ask Vincent. And then I get a really good answer and I don't need to call that lawyer anymore. And that lawyer has no idea why the phone didn't ring.”

“If you're not paying attention,” cautioned Damien, “and if you're not dipping your toes into the AI water, maybe revenue will drop and you'll have no idea why your revenue will drop because clients don't like to say why they didn't call you. You're not practicing in a 21st century way. So they'll put their money where others actually are putting their money, where the AI is.”

Seeing this existential change for what it is, “as lawyers, we need to figure out where can the AI not be a replacement and how do we make it clear to our clients that that's the value we bring. And instead of fighting the AI, it's saying, okay, let's review what you pulled from it. Here's my business analysis. Here's how I can sit there and really be that strategic partner to you to be making the best decision and to be thinking maybe beyond where the AI tool just can't think, because there could be certain things that it just can't do.”

Predictions for 2025: Reaching the Slope of Enlightenment with AI

To close out the podcast, Jordan asked Damien to share his Q1 and Q2 predictions for 2025.

In building up to his predictions, Damien referenced back to the Gartner Hype Cycle, which includes five core stages: (1) Innovation Trigger, (2) Peak of Inflated Expectations, (3) Trough of Disillusionment, (4) Slope of Enlightenment, and (5) Plateau of Productivity.

"What I'm seeing with my biggest AmLaw 50 customers and my Fortune 100 clients,” said Damien, “is that all of them are in the slope of enlightenment, or at least most of them are in the slope of enlightenment, where they're actually doing the hard work of using AI for what it's really good for. And I think that in Q1 and Q2 of this next year, there's going to be more wins. That is, more wins of how lawyers and law firms are using AI to be able to do their work better, faster, stronger.”

But, “there's a real question as to whether you want to make those wins public or not,” stressed Damien, “because if I'm a law firm that's eating my competitor's lunch, why would I broadcast to the world that I'm eating my competitor's lunch? Why wouldn't I just essentially take more work from my clients? And those clients are not going to tell their competitors why the phone stopped ringing. So why would I mess with a good thing and tell the world about the cool things that I'm doing?”

“So I would say if I were to make a prediction about Q1 and Q2 of 2025, I would say that we are going to be continuing up the slope of enlightenment, and being able to see wins from lawyers and law firms that aren't necessarily going to be publicizing those wins.”

Elevate Your Practice with AI Engineered for Lawyers

Thank you to Jordan and the ABA Business Law Section for hosting Damien on The New Frontier podcast for a far-reaching conversation on how AI is changing the way lawyers work, how it’s disrupting traditional legal business models, and how the future of law is already here, just not evenly distributed.

Want to learn more about how you can elevate your practice and enhance your client service with AI engineered for lawyers?

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Authored By

Jeff Cox