‘Pushing generative AI to its limits’: How top Australian law firms are leaning into AI

One of Australia’s biggest law firms says it will ‘responsibly’ push the use of artificial intelligence to its limits, while the industry grapples with productivity gains and concerns about security.

One of Australia’s biggest law firms says it will “responsibly” push the use of generative artificial intelligence to its limits as the country’s heavy hitting legal players reveal they are all leaning into the technology that is now infiltrating modern practice.

Ashurst, Gilbert + Tobin, Baker Mckenzie, Clayton Utz, Herbert Smith Freehills and Minter Ellison told The Australian they use generative AI to support the drafting of legal advice with some also using it to accelerate discovery.

All insist the technology will not replace jobs, and say a lawyer verifies AI output.

Gilbert + Tobin partner Caryn Sandler said the firm is committed “to using market leading AI in all aspects of our service delivery, and we’ll continue responsibly pushing it to its limits”.

Australia’s top law firms say they are leaning into generative AI.

King & Wood Mallesons is bucking the trend, saying it uses Microsoft Copilot but: “We do not use AI to generate legal advice – it is not a substitute for our deep expertise and complex thinking.”

News about the widespread use of generative AI by lawyers came after it was revealed Minter Ellison used the technology to accelerate discovery in a mammoth case lodged by Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue against some of his former executives who launched a green iron competitor, Element Zero.

University of Sydney computer science expert Jonathan Kummerfeld told The Australian law firms will need to grapple with how they train large language models to improve their accuracy, and whether they keep their model in-house or dump data into a commercially available option like Open AI’s ChatGPT.

“I will be very surprised if these law firms were willing to allow their data to be used for general purpose. Obviously there’s a risk to them,” Dr Kummerfeld said.

“If they keep the data to themselves, they can use their own data to make the systems better for them, and no one else shares that benefit,” he said.

“All the incentives are for them to try to keep the data protected, and they should be able to do so if they set it up correctly.”

Dr Kummerfeld said he expects lawyers will not be entirely replaced by AI, but they will be more productive and they will continue to be essential to verify the technology’s output and counter any so called hallucinating.

“The question then is, can these firms put in place the necessary checks and balances to verify what they are putting out,” he said.

Lawyers are using generative AI to assist with legal tasks, such as drafting advice and in discovery.

Thomson Reuters senior director of AI and legal technology Catherine Roberts said the use of generative AI went from “mere expectations” in 2023, to tangible experiences in 2024 but the early months of 2025 “have brought us to a pivotal moment in AI adoption”.

“Now, we find ourselves at a critical juncture, discussing the hidden costs of hesitation, and whether professionals and firms who fail to adopt AI will be able to remain competitive in the market,” she said.

Ms Roberts said the media and information giant believed “AI won’t replace professionals — but an AI-equipped professional will.”

According to the Thomson Reuters 2025 “Generative AI in Professional Services Report”, 60 per cent of the Australian workers surveyed reported they are optimistic about the future of generative AI in the legal industry.

Two of the top three barriers to AI adoption in Australia were concerns about data security (75 per cent) and the privacy and confidentiality of information entered into generative AI tools (72 per cent), according to the report.

Thomson Reuters acquired legal start-up Casetext – an AI-powered assistant for law professionals – for $US650m ($1.01bn) last year. It has also invested in its flagship legal research tool, Westlaw Precision.

Gilbert + Tobin partner Caryn Sandler said the firm has broadened its use of AI to include generative AI to support a range of legal tasks including drafting, contract analysis, summarisation, research and knowledge management.

Thomson Reuters senior director of AI and legal technology Catherine Roberts.

She said the firm has used tools such as “technology assisted review” — a tool typically used to support lawyers discover documents relevant to litigation — since 2016.

As well, the firm uses Harvey (an AI tool developed for lawyers), RelativityOne and Microsoft Azure AI to support discovery.

“By leveraging machine learning algorithms ‘trained’ by documents coded by lawyers, TAR (technology assisted review) helps predict the relevance … of documents to certain production requests,” she said.

“We have also built on our strong foundation by leveraging the models that underpin TAR to validate outputs delivered by generative AI analytics technology for discovery.”

Ashurst partner Nathan Bellgrove said the firm also uses Harvey, which he clarified does not use Ashurst or any client data to train its large language model, plus RelativityOne and Reveal AI to assist with discovery.

“Ashurst uses many AI tools across a range of work types, including in research, document review and diligence, data analysis and transformation, and automation,” he said.

Allens chief innovation and legal solutions officer Lisa Kozaris said AI has saved their clients “significant costs” while it saved their lawyers time, a view shared by most of the firms.

“We have developed AI-powered tools and workflows to support and streamline a range of legal tasks including contract review, discovery, chronology preparation and document review in the context of responding to regulators and conducting business investigations,” she said.

Allens also uses commercially available software like Microsoft Copilot, Thomson Reuters CoCounsel, Relativity, Reveal and Nuix, plus others including an enterprise version of ChatGPT called Airlie.

King & Wood Mallesons managing partner Matthew Swinn said the firm uses its own generative AI app, KWM Chat.

“We use our tools as cognitive sparring partners, to create first drafts, and to augment how we work,” he said.

Baker Mckenzie’s national managing partner Anne-Marie Allgrove said: “Our lawyers have access to various generative AI tools to assist them in the provision of legal services including to draft legal advices.

“The tools help create efficiencies and assist, but never replace the role of a lawyer.”

A Clayton Utz spokesman would not reveal which tools it uses, except to say they are commercially available and “trusted vendors”, but told The Australian the firm has “leveraged predictive models for many years, and more recently are using generative AI to support discovery”.

“We use generative AI-enabled tools to assist in the development of legal advice, for example by supporting in legal research, summarising material and drafting simple content,” he said.

“Any AI-generated output is reviewed, edited and approved by our lawyers.”

Herbert Smith Freehills director Susannah Wilkinson said the firm uses 17 different tools with generative AI capability and they have built an in-house “instance of OpenAI’s generative AI Large Language Models”. She said the firm uses the generative AI review tool, Relativity aiR, to assist with discovery.

“Specific AI-enhanced legal research tools and integration with other GenAI skills can collectively support the delivery of tailored client advice,” she said.

Minter Ellison’s chief digital officer Gary Adler said the firm built its own generative AI tool “Content Generator”, which can “analyse content and generate initial drafts of legal advice”.

Originally published as ‘Pushing generative AI to its limits’: How top Australian law firms are leaning into AI