AI Topics for Lawyers to Watch in 2025, Part One: AI Agents

In this three-part series, I’m highlighting three AI topics for lawyers to watch this year. Come back next week for part two on the topic of benchmarking of AI tools for lawyers.

Issue 11 

Out of everything I’ve read about AI, my mind has returned to one particular article countless times. I think of it as “the summer camp article”. In the article, which was published in February 2024, computer scientist and mother of three Kathy Pham argues that we can delay worrying about AI taking over the world until it can handle the complexities of summer camp registration.[i] 

For parents, summer camp registration is the worst. It involves cobbling together two months of childcare in week-long camp increments, with varying registration dates, age requirements, locations, and hours of operation. Some camps sell out faster than Taylor Swift tickets. And the challenge rachets up significantly when you have multiple children who will attend different camps during the same week, or if you wish to register multiple children for the same camp that sells out in minutes, or try to coordinate registrations with the parents of your child’s friends. It should go without saying that it requires one or more complex spreadsheets. If you are a parent or if you have heard the complaints of a parent who has endured the time sucking logistical nightmare of summer camp registration, then you are acquainted with the complexity of the summer camp problem.  

Companies are working to develop AI solutions for complex problems like the summer camp registration problem. The AI approach that many anticipate will be the next big thing for complex problems in the legal industry is AI agents, sometimes also referred to as AI assistants, or agentic AI. 

What are AI agents?  

As a refresher, AI agents are computer programs that can perform tasks autonomously, extending the potential of generative AI beyond merely responding to a user’s queries. Some AI agents can already perform assignments that are relatively complex and involve multiple steps.[ii] And perhaps someday, AI agents will become sophisticated enough to provide a solution to something as complex as the summer camp registration problem.  

OpenAI’s o1 model, released earlier this year, is said to demonstrate qualities of agentic AI, such as naming objectives, and then planning and taking the steps to achieve the objectives.[iii]  

What sorts of problems can AI agents solve for lawyers?  

Examples of legal workflows that could possibly be streamlined with AI agents include contract review, litigation support, and e-discovery.[iv] Several legal tech companies introduced AI agent products in 2024, and at least two of those companies are utilizing OpenAI’s o1 model to provide their agentic AI solutions for lawyers.[v] One of those companies, Spellbook, has announced that their agentic AI solution, called Spellbook Associate, can execute multistep workflows across different documents and applications. [vi]  Additionally, Spellbook specifically predicts an increase in document revision workflows made possible by utilizing the o1 model, such as directing an agent to update multiple documents based on a term sheet.[vii]  

The number of legal tech companies that are rolling out AI agent or AI assistant solutions is rapidly increasing, with many new announcements anticipated in 2025. I’ll be watching the announcements to see which problems legal tech companies are working to solve with AI agents.  

What about the people who can’t afford lawyers? 

It’s tempting to dream about what problems might possibly be solved with AI agents for people with unmet legal needs. But as Ms. Pham states in her article, AI assistants are being crafted for corporate professionals, rather than being designed to solve real problems for those with less access and means. Nearly a year after Ms. Pham’s article was published, I know there are people out there working on AI solutions that improve access to justice. If you are one of them, I’ll be watching for your announcement, too. Please feel free to send me an email and tell me about your work. And all of the companies rolling out AI agents for lawyers are invited to join The AI Access to Justice Initiative and make a pledge to increase access to justice. 

Considerations for Lawyers Who Want to Explore Using AI Agents 

Lawyers who are interested in exploring the use of AI agents in their practices should evaluate the AI agent options available to them as they would any other AI tool. A few of the relevant considerations include, but are not limited to: 

•  Your organization’s unique technology improvement priorities: organizations should take time to gather internal data and quantify the area(s) where technology improvement would make the greatest impact before committing to any particular use case. AI agents are anticipated to have a lot of buzz in 2025, and it may be for good reason. But with over 50 ways to use AI in a legal practice, you need to evaluate the options in relation to your organization’s priorities to know where AI can make the greatest impact for you. 
•  Professional responsibilities: consider the interplay between your professional responsibilities and any AI tool you evaluate for use in your practice. In the case of AI agents that can take some autonomous actions, some of the relevant considerations may include the level of transparency the tool provides for the agent’s actions, how accuracy can be evaluated, and the opportunities for an attorney to review and approve the agent’s actions.  
•  Risk assessment: Organizations should perform a risk assessment of any AI tool they consider adopting. 
•  Testing: Your organization should create a testing protocol to further evaluate the AI tool before committing to it.   

If you are ready to move forward with evaluating AI agents or any other AI tools for your practice, Chapter 5 of A Lawyer’s Practical Guide to AI provides a detailed and actionable framework for evaluating an AI tool for compatibility with your organization. You can learn more about the guide here. 

AI agents are one of the three AI topics I’ll be watching in 2025. Stay tuned for next weeks’ article about another one of those topics: AI benchmarking.  

Thanks for being here. 

Jennifer
Good Journey Consulting

P.S. When you’re ready to learn more about AI, here are three ways I can help you: 

1.  A Lawyer’s Practical Guide to AI can help you get up to speed faster on AI. The guide is designed to help you develop your AI competency on issues that matter to lawyers, and also gives you actionable steps to help you explore whether you are ready to adopt AI in your practice, featuring a directory of over 150 AI tools developed for lawyers. You can get the guide here. 
2.  How Can Lawyers Use AI?: You can download my free resource that lists 50+ ways lawyers can use AI with tools developed for the legal industry.  
3.  Roadmap to AI Competency for Lawyers: This free resource explores six actionable steps you can take to develop your AI competency. 

[i] Kathy Pham, Forget the Turing Test. AI needs to pass the Summer Camp Test before it can take over the world, Fortune, (Feb. 2, 2024 10:10 PST), https://fortune.com/2024/02/02/forget-turing-test-ai-pass-summer-camp-test-take-over-tech/. 

[ii] Susanna Ray, AI agents – what they are, and how they’ll change the way we work, Microsoft, (Nov. 19, 2024), https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/ai/ai-agents-what-they-are-and-how-theyll-change-the-way-we-work/.   

[iii] Joshua Dupuy, Will AI Replace Lawyers? OpenAI’s o1 and The Evolving Legal Landscape, Forbes, (Oct. 16, 2024, 12:03 EDT), https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuadupuy/2024/10/16/will-ai-replace-lawyers-openais-o1-and-the-evolving-legal-landscape/. 

[iv] Arunim Samat, legal ai agent framework, TrueLaw, (Aug. 23, 2024), https://www.truelaw.ai/blog/legal-ai-agent-framework. 

[v] Gabriel Pereyra and Winston Weinberg, Harvey is building legal agents and workflows with OpenAI o1, Harvey, (Sept. 12, 2024), https://www.harvey.ai/blog/harvey-building-legal-agents-and-workflows-with-openai-s-o1; Scott Stevenson, OpenAI’s o1 for Legal Work, Spellbook, (Sept. 14, 2024), https://www.spellbook.legal/blog/openai-o1-for-law-legal-spellbook. 

[vi] Stevenson, supra note iv. 

[vii] Id.