Official launch partners
Chapter 0 · Introduction
00 Introduction 3 lessons
  1. 0.1 Who this guide is for and how to read it
  2. 0.2 The eight questions every lawyer asks
  3. 0.3 Survival glossary
01 How can AI help my practice and day-to-day work? 5 lessons
  1. 1.1 What is AI really?
  2. 1.2 Chat vs. agent
  3. 1.3 Where skills, MCP and plugins fit in
  4. 1.4 What lawyers are actually using AI for right now
  5. 1.5 Does it really save time?
02 Can I trust it? 5 lessons
  1. 2.1 Hallucinations
  2. 2.2 What is the answer based on?
  3. 2.3 When the model tells you what you want to hear
  4. 2.4 What a benchmark score really tells you
  5. 2.5 Test it on your own matters
03 Am I allowed to use it? 7 lessons
  1. 3.1 The three questions behind the question
  2. 3.2 What happens to the documents I upload?
  3. 3.3 Who can access, store or reuse my data?
  4. 3.4 Anonymisation and pseudonymisation
  5. 3.5 Professional rules by jurisdiction
  6. 3.6 Sovereignty and compliance
  7. 3.7 Other risks
04 How do I choose the best tools? 6 lessons
  1. 4.1 Same brain, different bodies
  2. 4.2 Subscription vs. API access
  3. 4.3 Legal AI tool or general-purpose assistant?
  4. 4.4 Open-source vs. closed, from the buyer's seat
  5. 4.5 Panorama of tools
  6. 4.6 Questions to ask before choosing a legal AI tool
05 How do we make it work across the firm or legal team? 7 lessons
  1. 5.1 Why one enthusiast is not an adoption strategy
  2. 5.2 Choosing a first pilot
  3. 5.3 Training the team
  4. 5.4 Measuring time saved and quality
  5. 5.5 Who maintains the tools and the shared know-how?
  6. 5.6 Change management
  7. 5.7 Working with IT, security and procurement
06 How do I get better results? 3 lessons
  1. 6.1 Give it better context
  2. 6.2 Turning your methods into reusable instructions
  3. 6.3 Watch out for AI slop
07 What does this mean for my career and my firm? 4 lessons
  1. 7.1 Which skills should lawyers develop?
  2. 7.2 What does a legal engineer do?
  3. 7.3 How AI may change fees, staffing and client expectations
  4. 7.4 What an AI-native firm might look like
08 Where and how do I start now? 4 lessons
  1. 8.1 Starter kits by profile
  2. 8.2 Classic mistakes to avoid
  3. 8.3 Section 1 recap
  4. 8.4 Staying current without drowning

Lesson 0.1 Introduction 3 min read

Who This Guide Is For (and How to Read It)

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AI tools arrived in legal work faster than most firms could write a policy for them. The Thomson Reuters 2026 AI in Professional Services Report (opens in a new tab) found that 41% of law firms and 47% of corporate legal departments say their legal teams are using GenAI, up from 28% and 23% respectively in 2025. Broader surveys report even higher numbers. The figure depends heavily on how the question is asked: survey design moves the answer from 26% to 92% .

Adoption

Lawyers are already using it.

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20%
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Law firms

Corporate legal departments

Adoption is rising fast. Understanding comes next.

Thomson Reuters, AI in Professional Services Report (2025, 2026). Surveys that count any AI tool, not only generative AI, report much higher figures. Definitions matter.

This guide is a plain-language map: what the tools do, where they fail, what the rules say, and how to begin. No technical background required.

Who it is for

Lawyers and the people who work with them: partners and associates, in-house counsel, judges, legal operations, paralegals, students. Whether you use AI daily or have never opened a chatbot, the guide starts from what you already know: legal work.

It won't sell you a tool, and it isn't advice on your own professional rules. It gives you the questions to ask, the sources behind each answer, and enough understanding to judge the rest yourself.

How to read it

  • Read in order, or jump to your question. Eight chapters, one for each question lawyers keep asking. Every lesson stands alone.
  • Lessons take a few minutes. Your progress is saved in this browser.
  • Hover or tap a dotted term, like , for a short definition. All terms are also in the survival glossary.
  • Every figure links to a dated source. AI moves fast; a six-month-old claim may already be stale.
  • Try the interactive examples. Where data is illustrative rather than measured, the example says so.

The full table of contents is on the course page.