Small and Medium Law Firms Armed with AI

Small and medium-sized law firms and individual lawyers are actively utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) technology to enhance work efficiency. While some large law firms have their own development teams and build customized internal AI systems, small and medium-sized law firms that lack the capacity to invest large sums in building their own AI systems are strengthening their competitiveness by using generative AI that has received good reviews in the market.

ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini Popular

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For small law firms, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude are popular. Law Firm Gow's legal office has its internal members subscribe to various generative AI services such as Gemini and apply them to their work, focusing on developing their own AI usage manuals and prompts. Yoon-ki Go (50, Judicial Research and Training Institute class 39), a lawyer at Law Firm Gow, said, “Lawyers share AI utilization know-how based on their individual case experiences,” adding, “Our goal is to provide better legal services by combining the members' legal experience with the latest AI technology.” A representative lawyer of a small law firm said, “Since advertising AI usage requires certification from the Korean Bar Association, we do not promote it separately, but internally we use simple machine learning functions to extract information from documents.”

A small law firm that launched a personal rehabilitation service using AI has also appeared. The Ddoksaeng service operated by Law Firm Hyunlim provides an ‘Expected Debt Reduction AI Diagnosis’ function that analyzes repayment rates by answering basic questions and inputting simple factual relationships of individual cases. Seo-hyung Hwang (40, 6th Bar Exam), a lawyer at Law Firm Hyunlim, said, “This is a case of applying AI to work by utilizing already commercialized AI rather than directly training a large language model (LLM),” adding, “The strength lies in combining AI technology with lawyers’ expertise to handle personal rehabilitation cases more efficiently.”

Attending Training, Taking Lectures... Studying AI

Individual lawyers are also actively learning how to use AI. They attend bar association training programs or take paid lectures to practice AI commands and apply them in practice. A lawyer in Seocho-dong, Seoul, said, “Lawyers mainly engaged in litigation were hesitant to use ChatGPT because they were not familiar with AI utilization, but their perception changed after attending a seminar held by the Seoul Bar Association.” Another lawyer in Seocho-dong said, “By using AI for drafting tasks such as writing opinions, summarizing documents, and English translation, simple tasks that used to take an hour could be completed in 30 minutes.”

As lawyers utilize various AI tools in practice, lectures related to generative AI are also changing. Previously, lectures focused on how to use ChatGPT, but now they explore ways to efficiently apply various AI tools such as Perplexity and LBox AI by comparing and analyzing them. A lawyer who conducts AI utilization lectures explained, “Previously, lectures mainly covered basic usage of generative AI, but now there is growing interest in how to use AI in specific legal fields such as civil and criminal law.”

Local Bar Associations Support Members’ AI Service Utilization

Interest in AI utilization is spreading beyond the metropolitan area to local lawyers as well. Jae-wook Ha (53, class 30), president of the Gwangju Bar Association, said, “In 2024, the Gwangju Bar Association held AI legal service lectures as mandatory training, and the response from members was enthusiastic,” adding, “The interest was so high that some court judges also attended, making us realize that lawyers in the region have a strong thirst for AI-related information due to local characteristics.”

Local bar associations are supporting the adoption of AI in practice by subsidizing AI legal service fees or strengthening utilization education in response to members’ demands and positive responses. The Seongnam branch of the Gyeonggi Central Bar Association, the Incheon Bar Association, and the Jeonbuk Bar Association signed a business agreement with Law&Company (CEO Kim Bon-hwan) to expand the use of legal AI technology. Jeong-hyun Choi (56, class 34), president of the Incheon Bar Association, said at the signing ceremony with Law&Company, “We will make continuous efforts to ensure that member lawyers can acquire expertise to respond ahead of the rapid changes in legal tech.”

Reporter Hyun Ahn, Legal News

※This article is based on content supplied by Law Times.