Automate the repetitive, high-volume, low-risk work first: email filed to the right matter, the file note and client letter after every consultation, and first drafts from your own precedents. Never hand AI a step that cannot be undone or that is the lawyer's own judgement: witnessing or signing a document, assessing testamentary capacity, authorising a release of trust funds, the compliance sign-off and the legal advice itself.
The order matters as much as the list. Start with a task your team can check, and the first win earns the trust for the next one. Start with something that goes straight to a client, and one mistake is all anyone remembers.
Think of AI as a first-year lawyer. Capable, fast and eager, and checked before anything goes out. You would give a first-year the file note and the first draft, and you would read both. You would not hand them authority over your trust account in their first week. AI sits in the same place, with one difference. A first-year grows into more responsibility. Some steps stay with a person however good the AI gets.
How to pick the first task: the 30 to 45 minute test
A good first task takes someone in your firm 30 to 45 minutes most days, follows the same pattern every time, and is a job nobody enjoys. That is the 30 to 45 minute rule, and it turns into three questions you can put to your partners at the next meeting.
- Does it take someone 30 to 45 minutes most days? Thirty minutes a day adds up to more than a hundred hours a year, from one person, on one task. A job you do twice a year is not worth automating, however much everyone dislikes it.
- Does it follow the same pattern each time? Same inputs, same steps, same shape at the end. A file note has the same headings every time. The decision about whether a client should settle has no pattern to follow.
- If AI gets it wrong, will a person catch it before it leaves the firm? This is the question that keeps you safe. An email filed to the wrong matter and spotted the same morning costs a minute. A step that goes straight to a client, a court or the trust account gets no second look. Start where there is one.
Three yeses and you have your first task. Two out of three, keep looking.
Five jobs to automate first
These five tend to pass all three questions. For each one, here is what it looks like when it works and who still signs off.
Email filed to the right matter
When it works. Every incoming email is read, matched to its matter and filed in your practice management system before anyone opens the inbox. Anything the assistant is unsure about goes to a person to file by hand.
Who signs off. Nothing leaves the firm, so there is nothing to sign. Your team handles the emails the assistant flags, and the morning goes on the matters.
The file note and client letter after every consultation
When it works. The consultation is recorded with the client's consent and transcribed, and the assistant drafts the file note and the client letter in your firm's own voice. The lawyer reads both while the meeting is still fresh.
Who signs off. The lawyer who ran the consultation. They correct the draft, sign it and send it.
First drafts from your own precedents
When it works. A standard agreement, an advice letter or a court form arrives as a first draft, built from your own precedents in your house style, with the matter details already in. Nobody starts from a blank page.
Who signs off. The solicitor on the matter reviews and settles every draft. The drafting choices that need judgement stay theirs.
Time recording and billing narratives
When it works. The time entry and its narrative are drafted from the work on the file that day: the emails, the calls and the documents. Nobody has to rebuild Tuesday from memory on Friday afternoon.
Who signs off. The lawyer who did the work confirms the entry, and the partner approves the bill the way they do today.
Matter opening and the conflict search
When it works. The new matter is set up from the enquiry, the parties are pulled out of the documents, and the conflict search is run and laid out for a person to review.
Who signs off. Whoever clears conflicts in your firm. The assistant prepares the search. A person decides whether the firm can act.
Five steps AI should never take
Each of these either cannot be undone or is the lawyer's own judgement. AI can prepare the paperwork around every one of them. The step itself stays with a named person.
If a step cannot be undone, or it is the judgement your client pays for, a person does it.
Write these five into your firm's AI policy before anything is built, so the line holds when a deadline arrives. They sit beside the six rules on the AI strategy for law firms page, which settle what AI may see, where it is processed, who signs off and how long anything is kept.
What it looked like at one firm
Catton & Tondelstrand is a 20‑person family law firm on the Sunshine Coast. Their first task was email filing, the classic 30 to 45 minute job. Every incoming email is now read, matched and filed to the right matter in Smokeball. The second was the consultation write-up: each consultation becomes the file note and the client letter, drafted for the lawyer to correct and sign.
Neither assistant goes near the never list. The firm's rule is that nothing leaves the firm without a lawyer seeing it. Starting with work the team could check is what earned the trust for each system after it, and the firm is recovering more than $1.3M a year in productivity.
Where to start in your firm
Before your next partners' meeting, ask each partner to name one task in their team that takes 30 to 45 minutes most days. Run each one through the three questions. Then write the five never steps into your AI policy, so the line is settled before anyone builds anything.
If you want the full picture first, AI strategy for law firms sets out how a firm goes from that list to a 12‑month plan its partners own. You can see what the first step produces in a sample AI Scan report, written for a fictional law firm, and how the assistants work inside your practice management system on AI for law firms.
Find your firm's first task
Bring your list to a free 20‑minute chat and we'll go through it together.
Book a free 20‑minute chatWant the full map first? The AI Scan maps where AI pays back first in your firm, scores your top 3 processes for safety, capability and return, and gives you a written 90‑day plan.
Founder and Principal of Blue Seas AI. Queensland Government AI mentor. Top 10 finalist, Australian AI Awards 2025 & 2026. Before AI, 16 years in financial crime, risk and continuous improvement for major banks across Australia and Europe.