Extract from Kendall & Fitzgerald’s article, “How Generative AI is Changing the Game for Deal Lawyers.”
The legal profession is facing a complete recalibration in the age of AI. In corporate transactions, where structured language and negotiated risk allocation define the work, generative AI offers a rare alignment between technology and task.
In the past 18 months, generative AI for corporate lawyers has gone from an intermittent curiosity to table stakes technology that is leaving behind anyone who is not an enthusiastic adopter.
In corporate transactions, generative AI is being deployed to streamline virtually all aspects of the deal process, including due diligence, deadline tracking, generating issues lists, drafting operative language in definitive deal documents, and updating template forms from one deal to the next. Properly supervised, these tools are not replacing judgment, but rather increasing the quantum of judgment that can be applied per hour.
In a segment of the profession still heavily dependent on the billable hour, leveraging generative AI has become a bedrock component of an efficient deal process and an imperative to reasonable legal fees. Many clients are also themselves using generative tools to draft commercial agreements, review counsel’s work, and benchmark legal advice. This AI self-lawyering by clients is not without pitfalls, but it can also materially streamline the effort (and corresponding fee) that transactional lawyers need to apply in diligence and drafting processes.
