In-house legal teams opt for AI solutions over law firms
updated on 31 March 2025
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In-house lawyers are turning to AI as dissatisfaction with the current law firm model grows, according to a recent survey by intelligent contracting platform Juro. Results showed that many believe the traditional law firms fail to deliver cost-effective support, with 45% stating that the top 100 firms offer “poor” or “terrible” value for money. Consequently, 19% have replaced outside counsel with AI in the last 12 months and 34% plan to do so in the next six months.
The annual State of In-house report included 160 responses from in-house lawyers across the UK, US and EU. It highlighted key concerns in-house lawyers have about using external advice from law firms, including overpriced services, poor-quality advice, advice that lacks commercial relevance and an outdated hourly billing model. These issues are exacerbated by resource constraints within in-house teams, with only 31% expecting their team to grow this year and 69% expecting it to stay flat or shrink. One survey respondent said: “The cost inflation in recent years means that it is increasingly difficult to justify spend on outside counsel for anything other than mission critical pieces of advice.”
As budgets tighten, AI is a popular alternative. Data found that 99% of respondents believe AI will change their jobs in the coming year, while 43% believe it’ll change their roles significantly. In addition, more than 90% of respondents currently use AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, on a daily or weekly basis for their jobs. The main benefits legal teams reported for adopting AI include “saving time, handling more work without adding headcount and enabling business teams to self-serve on legal tasks”.
Richard Mabey, Juro CEO and co-founder, said: "In an environment where AI is redefining value in the legal industry, AI-driven solutions and alternative providers are proving that high-quality legal work doesn’t have to come with excessive fees or inefficiencies. As budgets remain tight and workloads grow, in-house teams are making smarter choices and rejecting the old model that no longer serves them."
However, several issues are still holding legal teams back from adopting AI. The report highlighted “trust, accuracy, business adoption and change management” as primary concerns. It also found that many lawyers find AI confusing, with 49% of respondents indicating a limited understanding of Copilot, while 66% of respondents believe that regulators have limited or no understanding of the technology.
