Key Results

• 80% faster research
• €200K productivity gains
• 4x more cases handled

Case Study

Company Overview

LegalFirst is a mid-size French law firm specializing in business law, with 25 lawyers and 8 paralegals. They manage 500+ active cases and maintain an archive of 15,000+ contracts and legal documents accumulated over 12 years.

The Challenge

The Document Maze • 15,000+ documents spread across file servers • Average time to find relevant precedent: 45 minutes • Junior lawyers spent 60% of time on document research • Critical clauses often missed in complex contracts

Specific Pain Points

Contract Review • Manual review of 200-page contracts took 8+ hours • Clause comparison across similar contracts was nearly impossible • Risk of missing conflicting terms or unusual provisions

Case Precedent Research • Finding relevant past cases required senior lawyer knowledge • Institutional memory lost when lawyers left the firm • Duplicate work on similar legal questions

Due Diligence • M&A due diligence overwhelmed the team • Tight deadlines with hundreds of documents to review • High stakes for missing critical information

The Solution: RAG Legal Assistant

LegalFirst implemented Ailog's RAG platform to create an intelligent document search system:

Document Corpus • 15,000+ contracts (PDF and DOCX) • 3,000+ legal memos and opinions • 500+ court decisions and case files • Standard clause library (1,200 clauses) • Legal templates and checklists

Key Capabilities

Semantic Contract Search • "Find all contracts with change of control provisions" • "Show indemnification clauses exceeding €1M" • "Which contracts have non-compete durations over 2 years?"

Cross-Document Analysis • Compare clauses across similar contracts • Identify unusual or non-standard terms • Flag potential conflicts between documents

Natural Language Queries • "What was our position on data processing liability in 2023?" • "Show me employment termination cases we won" • "Find contracts with Company X across all matters"

Implementation

Phase 1: Document Preparation (Weeks 1-2) • Audit and organize document archive • OCR for scanned documents (30% of corpus) • Metadata tagging (client, matter type, date, lawyer)

Phase 2: RAG Configuration (Weeks 3-4) • Legal-specific chunking (by clause and section) • Custom embeddings for legal terminology • Access controls by matter and confidentiality level

Phase 3: Training & Rollout (Weeks 5-6) • Training sessions for all lawyers and paralegals • Pilot with 5 active matters • Feedback integration and prompt refinement

Results After 6 Months

Research Efficiency

| Metric | Before | After | Change | |--------|--------|-------|--------| | Avg. research time | 45 min | 9 min | -80% | | Precedent found rate | 60% | 95% | +58% | | Junior lawyer research time | 60% of day | 25% of day | -58% |

Business Impact

| Metric | Before | After | Change | |--------|--------|-------|--------| | Cases handled per lawyer | 20/year | 32/year | +60% | | Billable hours per lawyer | 1,400/year | 1,680/year | +20% | | Client satisfaction score | 4.1/5 | 4.7/5 | +15% |

Financial Impact • Productivity gains: €200,000/year (estimated billable hours recovered) • Faster turnaround: 30% quicker on average engagement • Reduced due diligence costs for clients

Use Case Examples

Contract Review Acceleration

Before: Junior lawyer spends 8 hours reviewing a 200-page acquisition agreement.

After: RAG assistant: Instantly identifies all material clauses (10 minutes) Compares representations & warranties to firm standard (15 minutes) Flags unusual provisions with similar clause examples (20 minutes)

Total time: 45 minutes + 2 hours senior review = 2.75 hours (65% reduction)

Due Diligence Transformation

Scenario: M&A due diligence on target with 500 contracts

Before: 3 lawyers, 4 weeks, €80,000 in fees

After: • RAG scans all contracts in 2 hours • Flags change of control, assignment, and termination clauses • Identifies 12 contracts requiring consent • Creates summary report automatically

Result: 2 lawyers, 2 weeks, €35,000 in fees (56% reduction)

Institutional Knowledge Preservation

A senior partner with 30 years of experience was retiring. Their knowledge of past cases and client relationships was irreplaceable.

Solution: All their memos, emails, and case notes were added to the RAG system. New associates can now query this knowledge:

"How did we structure the Dupont acquisition financing in 2018?"

The assistant retrieves relevant memos and explains the approach, preserving decades of expertise.

Technical Implementation

RAG Configuration `` Documents: 18,700 (15,000 contracts + 3,700 memos) Chunking: Legal-aware (section and clause boundaries) Chunk size: 600 characters with 100 overlap Embeddings: OpenAI text-embedding-3-large (legal accuracy) Retrieval: Hybrid search with metadata filtering LLM: GPT-4 Turbo with legal system prompt ``

Security & Compliance • All data processed in EU (GDPR compliance) • Role-based access control by matter • Audit logging for all queries • Client confidentiality barriers (Chinese walls)

Integration • Microsoft 365 integration (document sync) • iManage document management connection • Secure SSO authentication

ROI Analysis

Investment • Ailog Enterprise subscription: €500/month • Document preparation: €5,000 (one-time) • Training and rollout: €3,000 (one-time)

Annual Returns • Productivity gains (billable hours): €200,000 • Junior lawyer efficiency: €50,000 • Faster case delivery: €30,000

ROI: 35x in first year

Lawyer Testimonials

> "I was skeptical about AI in legal work. But this isn't generating legal advice—it's finding information I know exists but couldn't locate. It's like having a perfect memory of every document we've ever produced." > > — Senior Partner, Corporate Law

> "Due diligence used to be my nightmare. Now I can review a data room in a fraction of the time and actually focus on analyzing issues instead of hunting for documents." > > — Associate, M&A Practice

Lessons Learned Document quality matters - OCR quality and metadata directly impact retrieval accuracy Legal-specific chunking - Generic chunking breaks clauses; legal-aware splitting is essential Start with high-value use cases - Contract review and due diligence showed fastest ROI Maintain human oversight - RAG finds information; lawyers make judgments

Compliance Considerations

LegalFirst ensured: • Client consent for document processing where required • Data residency in France/EU • No training on client data (retrieval only) • Audit trails for regulatory compliance

Conclusion

For law firms drowning in documents, RAG isn't replacing lawyers—it's giving them superpowers. LegalFirst's 80% reduction in research time demonstrates that intelligent document search can transform legal practice.

The key is treating RAG as a research assistant, not a replacement for legal judgment.

Ready to modernize your legal practice? Contact Ailog for enterprise solutions with legal-specific features and compliance guarantees.

---

This case study is based on aggregated data from legal technology implementations. Firm name and some figures have been adjusted for confidentiality.