According to Clio’s 2025 Legal Trends for Solo and Small Law Firms, most solo and small-firm lawyers now use AI in some capacity across their practices.
However, only 8% of solo practitioners and 4% of small firms have adopted AI widely or universally, compared with 35% of large firms, highlighting a significant adoption gap.
Generic non-legal AI platforms such as ChatGPT are the most commonly used tools among smaller practices, with 57% of solo lawyers and 54% of small-firm lawyers reporting their use.
The central question for many small practices has therefore shifted from whether AI works to whether specialised software delivers enough additional value to justify the added expense.
Legal technology consultant and former large-firm commercial litigator Ernie Svenson said advances in technology have consistently lowered barriers for smaller practices over time.
“When I came out of law school, only large firms could afford Lexis,” Svenson said. “Each of these technologies that was previously affordable only by larger organizations increasingly became affordable by smaller firms.”
The same dynamic is now playing out with AI, as legal platforms such as Harvey and Legora market purpose-built tools while relying on the same underlying large language models that power general-purpose tools like ChatGPT and Claude.
Meanwhile, major AI developers are building legal capabilities directly into their products, with Perplexity AI, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft all launching legal-focused features or integrations in recent months.
The cost difference between general-purpose and legal-specific AI tools remains significant, with ChatGPT Plus starting at $20 per month compared to Thomson Reuters’ CoCounsel at approximately $784 per month for a solo attorney under an annual plan.
Svenson argued that smaller firms benefit from being more agile than large organisations when adopting new tools, saying “the advantage, at least theoretically and practically in many cases, is to the solo and very small firm.”
Kritika Bharadwaj, partner and AI committee chair at Day Pitney, said every new tool considered for firmwide use goes through standard vetting regardless of whether it involves AI.
“Every new tool that is to be used firmwide goes through a standard vetting process to ensure client and firm data is appropriately protected in accordance with firm policies,” Bharadwaj said. “Just because it is an AI tool does not change the normal procurement processes within the firm.”
Day Pitney, a mid-sized firm with over 300 attorneys across five states and the District of Columbia, has integrated both legal-specific and general-purpose AI tools into its operations for drafting, due diligence, and administrative tasks.
Bharadwaj noted that while legal-specific platforms offer efficiencies at scale, they do not always suit every firm size or practice type, saying “some of these tools may not fit every type of law firm, every type of practice, every size.”
Janice Dantes, founder and managing partner of Pinay Law, a three-attorney firm based in Chicago, Illinois, said her firm treats AI tools as extensions of existing processes rather than wholesale replacements.
“These tools are just an extension of paper, but it’s making it easier, so you find a tool that fits or enhances your process,” Dantes said. “You don’t fit the hand to the glove, you fit the glove to the hand.”
Pinay Law created hundreds of informational YouTube videos using AI to write scripts and generate voice recordings, helping answer frequently asked client questions more efficiently without adding significant overhead.
For legal research and drafting, the firm is currently evaluating Vincent, a legal-specific AI platform developed by vLex and now part of Clio, as it considers expanding its substantive AI use.
Dantes emphasised that attorney oversight remains central to every use of AI in legal work, with outputs reviewed independently and legal analysis remaining the responsibility of qualified lawyers.
“You still have to be very careful about what the case law says, because you’re still a lawyer, you still have to use your brain to analyze the data,” Dantes said. “You just have so many more tools to enhance the service.”
Bharadwaj added that as AI becomes more widely available across the legal industry, lawyers will increasingly distinguish themselves through expertise and the value they add beyond what any AI tool can generate on its own.