Drafting with AI is where most firms feel the time saving first. A first version of a letter, a clause or a statement comes back in seconds. The gain is real, and so is the risk if the draft goes out unchecked.
Where it helps
Routine correspondence, first drafts of standard clauses, plain-English summaries of dense material, and tidying and reformatting. For these, AI gives you a competent starting point that a fee earner then shapes to the matter.
Where it does not
Anything that turns on the precise facts, the current state of the law, or a client's specific instructions. A model produces confident wording that can misstate the position, and it will not flag its own uncertainty. Bespoke advice is not a task you hand over.
A workable habit
Treat the draft as a trainee's first attempt: quick, useful and never final. Read it against the file and the law, correct what is wrong, and own the result. Record that you reviewed it. The time saved is in the typing, not the thinking.
Used this way, drafting with AI gives you back hours without putting your name to words you have not checked.
The competence duty behind all of this sits in the SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors.
If your fee earners already draft with AI and nobody has set the checking rule, that rule is a morning's work with the right help: get in touch.