An online professional reference on the use of generative artificial intelligence in legal practice.

This module helps lawyers understand how they can adapt their workflow into an AI-first workflow which is faster, more efficient, and just as accurate as how they worked before AI.

The AI-First Mindset

Most lawyers who use AI treat it as an add-on. They do their work the traditional way and occasionally check whether AI can help with a particular task. This is backward.

Working AI-first means starting every task by asking: Can AI accelerate any part of this? Similar to how you open Westlaw before researching a legal issue or Word before drafting a document, you open an AI tool before starting any substantial task and ask what it can contribute. Oftentimes, it replaces the old tools completely.

Then you can shift from doing everything yourself to orchestrating a process in which AI handles the raw production, and you handle everything that requires professional judgment.

Rethinking Your Daily Workflow

Consider a typical day in practice. Every task on your calendar is a candidate for AI assistance.

The individual time savings compound. If AI saves thirty minutes on each of six tasks per day, that is three hours reclaimed. Over a week, fifteen hours. Over a month, an additional full week of capacity.

Building Your AI Stack

Your AI stack is the combination of tools you use regularly and the workflows you have built around them. It should be tailored to your practice area and the tasks you do most often. One benefit of AI is its flexibility. You could start with a regular AI tool like Claude and use it for all parts of your work.

The specific tools matter less than the habit of reaching for them. The advantage comes from consistent use across many tasks.

Speed Multipliers

Voice Input

Typing is a bottleneck. Most lawyers think faster than they type, and legal reasoning often flows better when spoken than when written. Voice dictation tools like Wispr Flow allow you to speak naturally and produce formatted text that feeds directly into AI prompts, document drafts, or emails. One benefit of AI is that it can interpret everything you say and return an excellent output.

Voice input is particularly effective for the prompting workflow from Module 4. Instead of typing a detailed prompt, speak it. Describe the task, the context, and the format you want.

Projects and Custom Instructions

Most AI platforms allow you to set persistent instructions that apply to every conversation. Use these to establish your default context: your practice area, your jurisdiction, your preferred citation format, your verification requirements. Instead of repeating this context in every prompt, you set it once and it applies automatically.

Projects or workspaces let you group related conversations and documents. A single matter can have its own project with relevant filings, research, and drafts all accessible to the AI.

The Skills That Matter Now

The core of lawyering—judgment, strategy, client counseling, negotiation—remains essential and arguably becomes more valuable as AI handles the production work that used to consume most of a lawyer’s day.

What changes is the ratio of time spent on production versus judgment.

None of the skills in the right column become irrelevant. Instead, the existing skills become the foundation for the new ones.

From Tools to Habits

The goal is to make AI use natural.

Start with one task you do frequently. Build a workflow for it using the principles from Modules 3 and 4. Use it consistently for two weeks. Then add a second task. Then a third. Build gradually until AI is woven into your daily practice.

Those who try to overhaul their entire practice at once may get overwhelmed and revert to their old workflow, then complain that AI doesn’t work. But those who start with one task and expand methodically tend to stick with it because each new workflow proves its value before the next one starts.

By the time you have integrated AI into five or six daily tasks, the cumulative time savings are substantial, and the habit is self-reinforcing.

What This Means for Practice

The main change in the AI lawyer is how time is allocated—less time on production, more time on the work that only you can do.