More of the businesses that contact us now arrive having researched their legal question with an AI tool first, and we welcome it. Used well, it makes the first conversation quicker and more productive. This guide explains where AI tools help, where the research suggests they fall short, and how to bring what you have found to your solicitor.
An AI tool is a sensible place to start. It is available at any hour, it will explain an unfamiliar term without fuss, and it can give a business owner a working understanding of a subject before any fees are incurred.
In our experience the businesses that use it well come to their first conversation with us better prepared. They know broadly what a shareholders' agreement or a data processing agreement is for, they have a sense of the vocabulary, and they have thought about what they want to ask. AI tools are also good at helping to set out a chronology of events, at summarising long correspondence, and at suggesting what a particular type of document usually contains.
The limitation is that an AI tool answers the question it is given. A solicitor's first task on a new matter is usually to establish whether that is the right question, and that depends on facts the tool has not been told.
Take a common example. Asked what a shareholders' agreement should contain, an AI tool will give a thorough and broadly accurate list, which might include drag-along and tag-along rights, good leaver and bad leaver provisions, a deadlock mechanism, pre-emption rights and restrictive covenants. Which of these suit a particular company depends on who the shareholders are, what each of them contributes, whether anyone is likely to sell and how decisions are made today. Without that information the list describes a typical company rather than yours.
The research supports this. A June 2026 study of 26 AI models tested them in simulated legal consultations based on Chinese and US cases. Even the best model scored only a little over half on the study's measure of legal reasoning. The models gathered many of the relevant facts but seldom asked the follow-up questions a lawyer would, and they tended to adopt the client's framing of the problem.
Researchers at the UK AI Security Institute found that models are more likely to agree with a user when the user states a view than when the same point is put as a question. That study concerned everyday advice rather than law, but legal research points the same way. Earlier work from Stanford RegLab and HAI, testing the models available in 2023, found that they tended to accept an incorrect assumption built into a legal question and answer it with confidence.
AI answers are also persuasive. A team led by the University of Southampton asked 288 people to consider advice on everyday legal questions. Where participants did not know the source, they were more willing to act on advice from ChatGPT than on advice from a lawyer, even though they could partly tell the two apart. Where they knew the source, they relied on both equally. The researchers also found that the AI advice, although shorter, was more complex than the lawyers' advice.
This matters because advice that sounds authoritative is not necessarily advice that fits. A list of provisions can be thorough and still be wrong for the business. Some provisions add cost without adding protection, such as a deadlock mechanism in a company with one majority shareholder. Others can work against the business. A restrictive covenant drawn wider than is needed to protect the business is unlikely to be enforced, which can leave the business with less protection than a narrower clause would have given. A cap on liability needs to reflect which party carries the greater risk under the contract, and a cap taken from a general template may limit what the business can recover rather than what it may have to pay.
A few habits make AI research considerably more useful.
The most useful starting point is a description of the situation. Tell us what has happened, who is involved, what concerns you and what you would like the position to be in a year's time. Please send the documents themselves, such as the existing contract, lease or correspondence, rather than a summary of them.
If you have used an AI tool, we are glad to see what it suggested. Send it separately and labelled as such, and we will explain where it fits your circumstances and where it does not. Your solicitor will begin by asking about the business, because that is what determines which provisions you need and how they should be drafted.
Think carefully before uploading a contract, financial information or an employee's details to a public AI tool. Doing so may breach a confidentiality obligation, and data protection law applies to personal data entered into a prompt in the same way as anywhere else. Exchanges with an AI tool should not be assumed to attract legal professional privilege, and the Upper Tribunal has observed that placing confidential documents in a public AI tool puts them in the public domain, which can waive privilege. Where a matter may become contentious, it is better to share the documents with your solicitor first.
AI tools and solicitors do different parts of the same work. A tool can help you understand the subject and prepare. A solicitor applies that understanding to your business, your documents and what you want to achieve. Used in that order, the two together make for quicker advice and documents that fit.
Lawyerly is a firm of commercial solicitors authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Every client works with a named senior solicitor on a fixed monthly fee. If you have already researched your matter, bring what you have found to your first call with us.