Why AI matters for client work
Legal tech is no longer a side conversation. For clients, the real question is whether it helps lawyers deliver faster, clearer and more commercially useful advice. AI is only one part of the toolkit, alongside collaboration tools, document automation, and project management platforms, but it is where we are seeing some of the most immediate practical impact. This article looks at how the Tech & Media (Commercial) team at CMS Scotland uses AI in client work, where it saves time, and where lawyer judgement remains fundamental.
The starting point
The challenge will be familiar to many clients: large volumes of contracts, complex document sets, long email chains and increasing pressure for faster turnaround and clearer visibility. When similar tasks are handled manually from scratch, speed and consistency can suffer. AI arrived at a useful moment, giving us a way to reduce repetitive work while keeping legal judgement at the centre.
Choosing the right tool
We do not rely on just one tool for everything. Different tools support different parts of the legal process, and we continue to review and trial technology to ensure that we are using the right tool for the right task.
How Harvey supports legal review
Harvey has the biggest impact on core legal tasks, especially contract review and clause analysis. For large suites of interrelated contracts, it can quickly pull targeted answers from across multiple documents. That turns hours of reading into a few minutes of focused checking, helping us get to the issues that matter sooner.
We also use Harvey for contract drafting. It helps produce a solid first draft of a clause without spending unnecessary time searching through old precedents. It does not write the contract for us, but it gets the team to the starting line much faster.
How Copilot reduces admin
Copilot supports the work around the legal advice. We do not tend to use it for core legal analysis, as results can be too high-level, but it is useful for summarising long email chains, flagging missed emails, setting agendas, taking meeting notes and converting documents into presentations. Scheduled prompts are particularly useful, giving the team regular summaries without adding extra admin effort.
Copilot is also useful for non-legal research, such as pulling together background on a sector or company, or conducting research into the scientific context behind life sciences work. For legal research, we continue to use trusted platforms such as Lexis and PLC. AI can get things wrong, and client advice has to be grounded in reliable legal sources. Those traditional platforms now have their own AI features too, which we also use where appropriate.
AI is only part of the toolkit
AI is only part of a broader legal tech toolkit that also includes document automation, client portals, and matter management platforms. This article focuses on AI because it is where many client questions currently sit, but if the wider toolkit is just as important to how legal work is delivered.
Where lawyers add judgement
These tools do not replace the parts of legal work that clients value most: strategic advice, risk assessment, negotiation positioning, and understanding the commercial context behind a clause. They also do not replace quality control. Every piece of AI-generated output is reviewed by a lawyer before it reaches a client. The tools handle the groundwork; lawyers handle the judgement.
A practical example: faster triage
One example is our work a large international banking client through a bench arrangement, where we act as an extension of their in-house team. The client sends us document packages for different requests. Previously, senior associates would spend hours reviewing the material, identifying what was needed, and assigning it to the right lawyer. We now use Harvey for the initial triage and review, with senior associates checking the output rather than starting from scratch. This saves around six to eight hours of senior associate time each week, freeing that time for higher-value work. It also improves consistency across the team and reduces time spent on repetitive tasks.
What clients gain
For clients, the benefits are practical: faster turnaround without cutting corners, more consistency across deliverables, clearer visibility of progress, and more lawyer time focused on strategic input. It's not about replacing the legal work — it's about clearing the path so we can do it better.
The takeaway
The real value of legal tech is not any single tool. It is using the right mix of tools, for the right tasks, with confident lawyers firmly in control.
Get in touch
If you are considering how AI, automation, or better ways of working could support your legal function, we would be happy to share what we are seeing in practice.
