The Brief:
Gartner predicts in-house legal tech budgets will double by 2028, driven by AI productivity gains.
By 2029, half of all contract reviews will be handled by self-service AI, and legal departments may start cutting headcount as AI absorbs the load.
Legal departments are opening their wallets.
Gartner predicts in-house legal tech budgets will double by 2028, as legal AI platforms like Harvey, Legora, GC AI and Thomson Reuters CoCounsel deliver measurable gains across routine legal work.
The research firm has identified six capabilities where these tools are already moving the needle: legal research, litigation support, contract review and redlining, contract analysis and metadata extraction, M&A due diligence, and end-to-end agentic workflow orchestration.
Early results are backing the investment.
Early evidence suggests multi-agent legal applications offer gains in productivity, reduced reliance on external counsel, and improvements in compliance, though outcomes will vary depending on implementation and organisational context.
The story becomes clearer the further forward you look.
By 2029, Gartner expects around 50% of contract reviews to be handed off to self-service systems, with only one in 10 escalated for a human. “In the same timeframe, we predict that 60% of legal departments will use AI-driven intake systems that capture all requests and answer one-half of those without human intervention,” Wicks added.
That’s not just an efficiency story. It’s a headcount story.
With AI absorbing routine work, legal departments are already freezing hiring. Slight cuts could follow. And as in-house teams push back harder on external spend, Gartner sees law firm billable hours at risk of flatlining.
Source: Gartner, Global Legal Post