AI for solicitors: the day-to-day uses that save real time

For a solicitor, AI saves the most time on the work around the law rather than the law itself: covering calls while you are in court, keeping clients updated, summarising long material, first drafts of routine letters and finding things in your own files. It saves least, and risks most, on research and advice, where every output must be checked against a primary source before anyone relies on it.

This piece walks through a fee-earner's week and marks each task by how much AI can take and what you still have to do yourself. It is written for solicitors in private practice in England and Wales. For the firm-level view, including policy and procurement, start with our guide to AI for UK law firms.

Where does a solicitor's time actually go?

Before choosing tools, it is worth being honest about where the hours leak. Most fee-earners we speak to describe the same pattern: the legal work takes the time it takes, and the interruptions around it take much longer than anyone records. Clients ringing for an update. Enquiries that land while you are in a hearing and are cold by the time you ring back. Emails that need a two-line reply but sit for three days because each one needs the file open.

A simple exercise, which takes one week: keep a tally on a sticky note of every time you are pulled away from focused work, and what pulled you. You are not trying to be precise. You are trying to find the two or three interruption types that happen most, because those are where a tool earns its keep. In our experience they are almost never 'drafting' and almost always 'somebody wanted to know something'.

How can AI help solicitors with calls and client updates?

This is the use most solicitors overlook, because it does not feel like legal work. It is, however, where a lot of goodwill and a lot of new instructions are lost.

• Cover while you are in court. An assistant can answer your line, tell the caller it is AI, take the message properly (who, which matter, what they need, how urgent) and book a time for you to call back. You come out of the hearing to a summary rather than three voicemails.
• Matter updates. Most update calls ask one question: what is happening. If you have approved what can be shared, the client can be kept informed without waiting for you to be free. You decide the wording and the boundary.
• New enquiries. A caller who reaches nobody usually rings the next firm. An AI front door that asks the firm's own qualifying questions and books the consultation keeps that enquiry warm until you can speak to them.

The rule that makes this safe is the same one in every use below: the assistant handles administration and never advice. Capturing that a client received a letter on a date is administration. Telling them what the letter means is advice, and it stays with you. Our piece on whether a UK firm can let AI answer client calls goes through the regulatory side in more detail.

Can AI draft letters and emails for solicitors?

Yes, for routine correspondence, as a first draft you edit. Chasers, acknowledgements, requests for documents, appointment confirmations, updates in plain English. The saving is real because these are the messages that take five minutes each and happen thirty times a week.

Three rules keep it safe. Use a tool the firm has approved, on a business account, so client information stays under the firm's control. Never send a draft you have not read in full, because a model will happily fill a gap with something plausible. And be careful with anything that states a position, a date or an amount, since those are exactly the details a model gets wrong while sounding certain.

Can solicitors use AI for legal research?

Carefully, and only with verification. The High Court's judgment in Ayinde v London Borough of Haringey [2025] EWHC 1383 (Admin) is the case every solicitor should read on this. In the linked Al-Haroun matter, a schedule of forty-five citations put before the court included eighteen cases that did not exist. The court said the duty to check authorities against authoritative sources applies whether you used AI yourself or relied on somebody else who did.

The practical position: a research tool can point you towards material faster, but every case, quotation and proposition must be checked against the official report or a reputable legal database before it goes anywhere. If you do not have time to check it, you do not have time to use it. AI hallucinations and law firms has a verification routine you can adopt as it stands.

Can AI summarise documents for solicitors?

It can, and it is one of the better uses when the output is treated as a map rather than the territory. A summary of a long bundle or a thread of correspondence helps you find what matters. It does not replace reading the passage you rely on. Summaries are also where omissions hide: a model can drop the one sentence that changes everything and the summary will still read smoothly.

A habit worth building: ask for the summary with references (page, paragraph, date of email) so you can jump to the source. If a tool cannot tell you where a point came from, treat the point as unverified.

What AI tools do solicitors use?

Broadly four kinds, and it helps to know which kind you are looking at. General assistants (ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Claude). Document and research tools built for lawyers (Harvey, Legora, CoCounsel and others). AI features inside practice management and case management software. And tools that work on the client relationship, such as call cover and enquiry handling. We explain the best-known document tool in what Harvey AI is and who it is for.

Which one you need depends on the interruption tally from earlier. If your week is lost to drafting and review, look at document tools. If it is lost to the phone and the inbox, look at the relationship side. For many fee-earners it is the second.

A solicitor's week, task by task

Here is a way to score your own work. For each recurring task, ask three questions: how often does it happen, how easy is the output to check, and what happens if it is wrong and nobody notices? High frequency, easy to check and low harm is a good candidate. Anything where a mistake reaches a client or a court unchecked is not.

• Returning missed calls and triaging enquiries: frequent, easy to check, low harm if the summary is reviewed. Good candidate.
• Client update calls: frequent, easy to check if you set what can be shared, moderate harm if the boundary is loose. Good candidate with a clear rule.
• Routine letters and emails: frequent, easy to check because you read before sending, low harm. Good candidate.
• Summarising correspondence or a bundle: moderate frequency, checkable if references are given, moderate harm from omissions. Candidate with a habit of checking.
• Legal research: moderate frequency, slow to check properly, high harm. Use only as a pointer, verify everything.
• Advice on merits, prospects or deadlines: this is your job. Not a candidate.

A worked example, with invented figures for illustration only. A hypothetical private client solicitor tallies a week and counts 22 calls asking for an update, 9 missed calls from new enquiries, and 40 routine emails. If call cover and matter updates absorb most of the first two categories and she spends ten minutes reviewing summaries each afternoon, the hours she gets back come from the interruptions rather than from the legal work. The legal work was never the problem.

How do solicitors get started with AI?

Start with your firm's policy, not with a tool. Find out which tools are approved, on which accounts, and for what kind of information. If nothing is written down, ask your COLP before you put any client information into anything. Then pick one interruption from your tally and try one tool against it for a month.

• Week 1: note every output you would have been embarrassed to send unedited. That list is your personal checking routine.
• Week 2: write down the exact instructions that produced good results, so you stop re-inventing them each morning.
• Week 3: ask a colleague to review a sample of what went out, because you stop seeing your own tool's habits quickly.
• Week 4: decide whether the time saved was real. Count it against the tally, not against how the tool felt to use.

The solicitors who get the most from AI are rarely the ones with the most tools. They are the ones who picked a narrow job, set a checking habit, and kept it after the novelty wore off.

What should solicitors never use AI for?

• Anything you put your name to without reading and checking it.
• Pasting client information into a tool on a personal account, or one the firm has not approved.
• Letting a system tell a client their prospects, a limitation date or a fee estimate on your behalf.
• Citing authorities you have not opened yourself.
• Pretending to a client that a message came from you personally when a system wrote and sent it.

The SRA Code of Conduct does not mention AI by name in these obligations, but it does not need to. Competence, confidentiality and not misleading clients cover every item on that list. Your firm's own policy should translate them into specific tools and accounts. If it does not have one yet, AI governance for law firms has a one-page version.

How WasilX helps a fee-earner

Our personal assistant for each fee-earner covers your calls while you are in court and drafts matter updates for the fee-earner to approve, and Cam takes calls on the firm's line and books new enquiries back to you. We do not read your documents and do not do research or drafting of legal work. If the phone is where your week goes, we would be glad to show you how it works.

Frequently asked questions

Is it professional misconduct for a solicitor to use AI? No. Using AI is not misconduct. Failing to check its output, sharing client information without the firm's control, or misleading a client or the court can be, whichever tool was involved.

Do I have to tell clients I used AI? There is no single rule requiring it for every internal use. If a client is dealing directly with an AI system, such as on a call, they should be told. For internal drafting, follow your firm's policy and your COLP's view.

Is there AI training for solicitors? Yes. The Law Society, the SRA and many universities publish guidance or run courses. Whatever you choose, make sure it covers verification and confidentiality, not just prompting.

Will AI replace solicitors? The work that needs judgment, accountability and a client's trust stays with a qualified person. What changes is how much of the week goes on the administration around that work.