AI agents for legal work are software systems that use AI models and connected tools to carry out tasks for law firms and corporate legal teams. They work toward a defined goal, selecting actions within the permissions and review rules set by the organization.
A document agent, for example, can retrieve case files, extract relevant information, and prepare a summary for review. The team defines which materials it can access and when it must pause for approval. These boundaries are part of AI agent development.
Depending on their configuration, legal AI agents can support:
- Document preparation: assemble drafts using approved templates and client information.
- Contract review: extract clauses, compare versions, and flag departures from the team’s guidelines.
- Case preparation: organize records into a chronology and connect findings to supporting documents.
- Administrative workflows: retrieve case updates from connected systems and prepare them for the team.
For Liner Legal, Tensorway built a document processing system that turns medical records into structured case summaries. Each summary entry links to the relevant PDF page, where the supporting passage is highlighted.
The value of a legal AI agent depends on how much usable work it completes and how easily a lawyer can check the result. Source references and a record of changes support that review. Decisions about legal strategy and approval of the final work remain with the legal team.
