Can Lawyers Use AI to Draft Contracts or Briefs? Legal AI Risks and Best Practices
The Answer Is Yes, But Not Without Guardrails
Law firms are asking the right question, but it is usually framed the wrong way.
The question is not simply “Can we use AI to draft contracts or briefs?”
The better question is: “Can we use AI in a way that improves efficiency without creating confidentiality, accuracy, ethical, or cybersecurity risks?”
For most law firms, the answer is yes, but only if AI is treated as an assistant, not an attorney.
Generative AI can help lawyers move faster. It can summarize long documents, create first drafts, identify missing clauses, compare contract language, outline arguments, and help attorneys think through structure. But it can also invent citations, misunderstand legal nuance, expose confidential client information, and create a false sense of confidence if used carelessly.
That distinction matters. A bad AI output is not just a typo, it can become a malpractice risk, a client trust issue, a court sanctions issue, or a data security problem.
Why Lawyers Are Interested in AI for Drafting
Most attorneys I meet are under constant pressure to do more with less. Clients expect faster turnaround times, clearer communication, and more cost effective legal work. Internal teams are buried in documents, deadlines, revisions, and research.
That makes AI attractive for tasks like:
- Drafting initial contract language
- Summarizing agreements
- Comparing versions of documents
- Creating issue outlines
- Preparing first drafts of briefs or memos
- Organizing discovery materials
- Generating client-friendly explanations
- Reviewing templates for missing provisions
The appeal is obvious. AI can reduce time spent and help your team work through repetitive drafting tasks more efficiently. The ABA has recognized that generative AI is already being used for legal tasks, including document review, contract analytics, legal research assistance, and drafting support.
But the legal profession has a much lower tolerance for “mostly right” than many other industries.
The Real Risk: AI Sounds Confident Even When It Is Wrong
The biggest danger with AI-generated legal work is not that it always produces bad results. The bigger danger is that it often produces plausible results.
That means a contract clause may sound polished but fail to protect the client. A brief may sound persuasive but cite a nonexistent case. A legal summary may be generally accurate but miss a jurisdiction specific issue. A risk analysis may sound complete but ignore a key exception.
Courts have already seen attorneys submit filings containing fabricated AI-generated citations, and the consequences are becoming increasingly serious. Recent Reuters reporting described lawyers being sanctioned or reprimanded after AI-related errors appeared in court filings, including false citations and fabricated quotes.
This is the lesson for law firms: AI can draft, but lawyers must verify.
Not skim. Not assume. Not “it looked right.”
Actually read through and verify.
What the ABA Says About Lawyers Using AI
The ABA’s Formal Opinion 512, issued in July 2024, provides important guidance for lawyers using generative AI. The opinion emphasizes that lawyers must consider their ethical obligations, including competence, confidentiality, client communication, supervision, and reasonable fees.
For practical purposes, that means a law firm using AI needs to answer several questions before allowing attorneys or staff to use it in client work:
Are attorneys competent in how the tool works?
Lawyers do not need to become software engineers, but they do need to understand the tool’s limitations.
Is client information protected?
Confidential data should not be pasted into public AI tools without understanding how the data is stored, used, retained, or trained on.
Are AI outputs being reviewed by a qualified attorney?
AI should not be the final decision maker on legal matters.
Are clients being informed when appropriate?
Depending on the use case, lawyers may need to communicate with clients about how AI is being used.
Are fees reasonable?
If AI reduces the time required for a task, billing practices need to remain transparent and ethical.
This is where law firms need policy, process, and technical controls, not just enthusiasm.
Can AI Draft Contracts?
Yes, AI can be useful in contract drafting, especially for early-stage drafting and review. But it should not be trusted as the final authority on enforceability, business risk, or legal strategy.
AI can help with:
- Creating a first draft from a structured outline
- Rewriting clauses in clearer language
- Comparing two versions of an agreement
- Identifying missing common provisions
- Summarizing obligations, deadlines, and renewal terms
- Turning deal notes into draft language
- Creating plain-English summaries for clients
But attorneys still need to review the document for jurisdiction, client goals, enforceability, defined terms, internal consistency, negotiation posture, and risk allocation.
A contract is not just a collection of polished clauses. It is a business and legal risk instrument. AI may understand language patterns, but it does not understand your client’s risk tolerance, leverage, industry, litigation history, or strategic objectives unless a lawyer brings that context.
For example, AI may generate a limitation of liability clause that sounds standard, but whether that clause is appropriate depends on the transaction, the parties, governing law, insurance requirements, indemnity structure, and commercial realities.
That is legal judgment. AI does not replace that.
Can AI Draft Legal Briefs?
AI can assist with briefs, but this is where law firms need to be especially careful.
AI may help with:
- Creating an outline
- Reorganizing arguments
- Summarizing factual background
- Improving readability
- Drafting procedural history from verified facts
- Turning attorney notes into a first draft
- Stress-testing counterarguments
But legal research, citations, quotations, procedural rules and case law analysis must be verified using trusted legal research tools and attorney review.
The legal industry has already seen multiple examples of AI-generated court filings containing nonexistent cases or inaccurate legal references. The ABA has continued to highlight the real consequences of AI hallucinations in litigation filings.
The safest rule is simple: AI can help draft language, but it should never be trusted to validate the law.
Before anything is filed, every citation, quote, rule reference, factual statement, and legal proposition should be checked against verified sources.
The Confidentiality Problem
For law firms, the biggest AI risk may not be hallucinated citations. It may be data exposure.
Attorneys and staff may be tempted to paste client contracts, litigation facts, employment records, settlement details, financial documents, or privileged communications into AI tools without thinking through where that information goes.
That can create serious confidentiality and cybersecurity concerns.
Before using AI with client information, law firms should know:
- Is this a public AI tool or an enterprise-controlled environment?
- Is data used to train the model?
- Is chat history retained?
- Can administrators audit usage?
- Is access protected by MFA?
- Is data encrypted?
- Can users paste confidential documents into the tool?
- Are prompts and outputs discoverable or logged?
- Has the firm reviewed vendor terms?
- Does the firm have a written AI use policy?
This is where many law firms are moving too fast. The attorneys may be thinking about productivity. The managing partners may be thinking about profitability. But someone needs to be thinking about security, compliance, access control, data retention, and client confidentiality.
That is where XSolutions approach matters.
The XSolutions View
At XSolutions, we believe technology should make a law firm stronger, not more exposed.
That means AI adoption should not start with a random tool someone found online. It should start with a practical plan:
- Define approved AI use cases
Decide where AI is allowed, where it is restricted, and where it is prohibited. - Protect confidential data
Prevent attorneys and staff from entering sensitive client information into unsecured AI platforms. - Create a review process
Require attorney verification before AI-assisted work product is sent to clients, opposing counsel, or courts. - Train the team
Everyone should understand what AI can do, what it cannot do, and what the firm’s rules are. - Control access
Use approved platforms, MFA, permissions, logging, and administrative oversight. - Document the policy
A written AI policy helps reduce confusion and creates consistency across the firm. - Review vendors carefully
Legal AI tools should be evaluated for security, privacy, data handling, retention, and contractual protections.
For law firms, AI is not just a software decision. It is a governance decision.
A Practical AI Policy for Law Firms
Every law firm considering AI should have a written policy that answers these questions:
What tools are approved?
Do not let attorneys and staff choose tools at random.
What information can be entered?
Clearly define whether client names, contracts, pleadings, privileged communications, financial data, or personal information can be used.
What tasks are allowed?
Separate lower-risk uses, like brainstorming or formatting, from higher-risk uses, like legal analysis or client-specific drafting.
Who must review AI output?
Require attorney review before anything becomes client-facing or court-facing.
How are citations verified?
For briefs, every case, quote, statute, and rule should be checked against authoritative legal research sources.
How are clients informed?
Determine when client disclosure or consent is appropriate.
How are employees trained?
AI rules are only useful if the team actually understands them.
How is usage monitored?
Firms should be able to audit and manage AI usage, especially where sensitive information is involved.
So, can lawyers use AI to draft contracts or briefs?
Yes, but not blindly.
AI can be a powerful drafting assistant. It can save time, improve structure, and help lawyers move faster. But it cannot replace legal judgment, ethical responsibility, confidentiality obligations, or careful attorney review.
For contracts, AI can help create and refine drafts, but lawyers must ensure the final document fits the clients goals and legal realities.
For briefs, AI can help organize and polish arguments, but lawyers must verify every citation, quotation, legal claim, and factual statement.
For law firms, the real opportunity is not simply “using AI.” The opportunity is using AI safely, strategically, and professionally.
That requires the right tools, the right policies, the right training, and the right technology partner.
XSolutions helps law firms adopt modern technology without losing control of security, confidentiality, or client trust. If your firm is considering AI, start with a secure strategy before your team starts experimenting on its own.
Have questions? Give us a call at (877) 807-1332
