Extract from Joe Patrice’s article, “New Report Finds More Lawyers Use AI, But For What Tasks?”
DISCO’s 2026 Legal AI Report opens by announcing that this “may be the year the legal tech dam finally burst.” Compared to the legal industry’s baseline, that makes some sense, with simple adoption taking a huge leap this year. Despite the gushing imagery though, the rest of the report suggests less of a violent burst, and more of a substantial, yet controlled opening of the sluice gates at Flood Control Dam #3, allowing a managed release to gently flow downstream.
The survey, run by Ari Kaplan Advisors, drew 104 respondents roughly split between firms and legal departments, and supplemented by direct interviews. Fifty-eight percent of respondents say they’ve folded AI into routine processes, up from 35 percent last year. Seventy-two percent say they’re confident using it for document review over manual techniques, up from 53 percent. And security fears among firm respondents fell from 68 percent to 43 percent.
But what do those numbers really mean? “Routine processes” provide efficiency opportunities, but it’s hardly the same as handing hefty chunks of complex tasks to AI. Using AI for document review? You have been for years! One respondent claimed they would “never go back to a manual review for first- or second-pass review,” but when was the last time anyone cracked open a 2TB drive and started a manual review? We’ve trusted the machines to handle eDiscovery tasks ever since we fought over seed sets. That’s not a knock on the advancements in this space, rather a reminder that this is a slice of the practice that traditionally luddite lawyers have long shown a willingness to hand to the machines.
