Artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI, is “fundamentally transforming” how all legal professionals operate, including paralegals. This shift, for such legal assistants, can and should be seen as a positive one.
At this point in time, fears about artificial intelligence (AI) taking lawyers’ jobs have all but been put to rest.
What has instead become clear to all is that the role of lawyers themselves is shifting and has already started to do so, particularly for junior practitioners. With new research suggesting that AI can free up 240 hours annually for practitioners, the opportunities are boundless when it comes to building deeper, smarter relationships with clients. To this end – and has been espoused by many – AI won’t replace lawyers, and for numerous reasons, but those who do use it will place those that don’t (or, at the very least, they will “outpace” them).
But while the role of lawyers appears safe – for those who lean into this new industrial revolution – it is important to explore whether other roles within legal businesses, such as that of the paralegal, may fall by the wayside.
This is a question being explored globally. Writing recently for Artificial Lawyer, Robin Ghurbhurun – who sits on the governing board of the UK-based National Association of Licensed Paralegals – opined that the deployment of AI tolls will “likely lead to work involving more nuanced business-led advice rather than collation and administration of data for paralegals”, as well as increased the “focus on quality control and the optimisation and safeguarding of contractual arrangements”. Moreover, he suggested, there is now “potential for paralegals to upskill and become expert legal ‘prompt writers’”.
Here, numerous industry experts weigh in on the ongoing place or otherwise for paralegals (at least, in human form) in law firms and in-house teams moving forward.
Changing roles
With lawyers and non-lawyers alike “now using GenAI with abandon”, Dr Sebastian Sequoiah-Grayson reflected, the adoption point is now in the past – much like the use of the web-enabled internet in the late ’90s.
Sequoiah-Grayson, who is a senior lecturer in epistemics at the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of NSW, said that as a result, our discourse must recognise the imposition that this situation imposes upon the profession as a whole, “and as those who are at the front-end of legal content, upon paralegals in particular”.
As lawyers increasingly step into strategic advisory roles, the roles supporting them are also shifting, shaped by rising client expectations and the growing adoption of AI. AI is already changing how legal service providers deliver for clients, and it’s also already changing in-house legal operating models.
The future for paralegals and legal assistants in Australia is one of evolution, said Jason McQuillen, legal optimisation and AI advisory lead and partner at MinterEllison.
“As lawyers increasingly step into strategic advisory roles, the roles supporting them are also shifting, shaped by rising client expectations and the growing adoption of AI,” he said.
“AI is already changing how legal service providers deliver for clients, and it’s also already changing in-house legal operating models.”
Jennifer Cathcart, the head of NetDocuments in the Asia-Pacific region, supported this, noting that the AI-inspired changes to interactions with technology and how we access information are a fundamentally transformative shift in how paralegals can and will operate.
However, she added, this evolution “should be seen as a positive one”.
“By automating routine tasks and surfacing insights faster, AI gives paralegals more opportunities to apply the fundamentals of law in real-world, hands-on ways,” she said.
Human v AI paralegals
Before unpacking how the day-to-day of paralegals is changing, and has already changed, it is worth touching on the current landscape for those in such roles – and what it says about how paralegal duties can and will be utilised.
According to Christian Beck, chief executive of LEAP, there is a “noticeable decline” in new entrants to the profession, making the finding of experienced paralegals increasingly harder to find and costly to hire.
This is where, he said, using AI to do many of the tasks a paralegal would typically do can solve the problem.
“The key for law firm profitability is to utilise AI in a way where the firms can bill for the AI paralegal, and for it to become their most profitable fee earner,” he said.
Lawyers, Beck continued, derive enormous benefit from having an abundance of good paralegals.
“Consider two equally skilled lawyers; one supported by a great paralegal, and one without. The lawyer with the paralegal can bill at a higher rate while still delivering better value for money to their clients, as the paralegal handles routine tasks at a lower cost. The lawyer with the paralegal can respond faster and serve more clients because the workload is shared. They also benefit from a steeper learning curve, gaining experience across more matters while spending less time on routine tasks,” he said.
An AI paralegal, he said, “is faster and more cost-effective than a human paralegal, amplifying all the leverage advantages. An AI paralegal needs to be billed out at a fixed fee and [be] clearly disclosed in the cost agreement”.
To this end, Beck posited, AI presents a valuable opportunity to address the shortage of paralegals in the legal profession.
“Human paralegals will remain essential, focusing on the tasks that AI cannot yet perform. We believe there will be no shortage of meaningful work for them. As AI improves efficiency and reduces costs, legal services will become more accessible and affordable; ultimately helping more people access the legal support they need,” he said.
Practical changes
The question of how best to utilise paralegals is one that Yule Guttenbeil, director of Attune Legal, has been recently grappling with.
“I now provide her with the same kind of AI training and encouragement that I give to lawyers: I believe anyone working with AI tools should actively consider how best to integrate them into their role. This is how everyone can bring their own ‘special sauce’ to the work that they do, and will form part of unique qualities and value proposition of the firm itself,” he said.
“Rather than discourage my paralegal from using these tools, I see paralegal work as being exceptionally well placed to benefit from optimisation via AI – sometimes even more so than substantive legal work.”
Cathcart supported this, noting that the profession is already seeing forward-thinking firms use AI to streamline contract analysis, drafting, and data extraction.
Paralegals, she said, have deep operational insight and understanding of firm processes, “so they are actually in a prime position to guide this change”.
“They’re not only able to leverage AI to boost their own productivity, but also play a critical role in ensuring accuracy, compliance, and ethical use by verifying data sources, applying legal context, and aligning outcomes with client expectations,” she said.
“When AI is built into tools paralegals already know and trust, like an intelligent document management system (DMS), it makes it easier to shift focus from repetitive work to higher-value contributions such as client communication, strategic support, and workflow automation.”
Guttenbeil also noted that he doesn’t believe it should be the lawyer’s job to perform ‘prompt engineering’ for paralegals.
“Paralegals have the best understanding of their own workflows and are therefore best situated to become expert prompt engineers, optimising AI for their roles’ specific needs. Lawyers can and should, of course, maintain oversight and provide feedback to help optimise the prompts.”
McQuillen added: “While paralegals and legal assistants have traditionally been associated with process-driven tasks, some of which will inevitably be automated, that’s far from the whole story.”
“We’ve seen firsthand the continued need for practical judgement, contextual understanding, and a deep grasp of how businesses operate. This human insight will become more critical as AI becomes embedded in legal workflows, as will stakeholder relationship and user experience,” he said.
“Agentic AI tools are advancing rapidly, but significant concerns remain, especially around safety, ethics, and professional responsibility. At our firm, we always keep a human in the loop when using AI, ensuring the quality and accuracy our clients expect.”
Paralegals and legal assistants are well placed to support this, McQuillen said, and clients will continue to value their contribution.
“This does mean, though, that paralegals and legal assistants need to upskill and become more of a ‘thinker’ than just a ‘doer’,” he said.
Broader professional considerations
Another key reason to retain paralegals in one’s practice, Mills Oakley partner Dalvin Chien pointed out, can be summed up in one word: “hallucinations”.
“Generative AI still hallucinates. An AI legal tool may, for example, cite a case that does not exist, misquote legislation, or invent fictitious legal principles. This is not necessarily ‘new’ with technology. The problem is that generative AI outputs are not presented in a way that necessarily allows one to choose the best option or to select the best answer from a list of, say, search results. Instead, the output is wrapped in fluent and authoritative-sounding prose,” he said.
“This isn’t just theoretical either. There are real consequences.”
Chien recounted the January case of Valu v Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (No 2) [2025], where a law firm was sanctioned for relying on AI-generated material without proper verification. The Federal Circuit and Family Court made it clear, he said, that fiction disguised as law will not be tolerated. In the Murray v State of Victoria [2025] proceedings in the Federal Court, he went on, indemnity costs were awarded against a firm that submitted false case citations generated by AI.
These decisions, Chien said, underscore a clear judicial trend: courts are no longer tolerant of unverified AI output and view it as a failure of legal professionalism.
“It also goes to show that the entire profession needs to be accountable. This accountability extends beyond lawyers. Paralegals and legal assistants often are the first to interact with legal research tools and GenAI platforms. They play a critical role in maintaining the quality and reliability of legal work,” he said.
“If generative AI is used to assist with drafting or research, paralegals must understand that every output must meet the same professional standard as a non-AI-generated one and must be scrutinised and verified as that of a solicitor. The risk is real – if errors are missed or overlooked, they can lead to professional embarrassment, lost client confidence, and tangible legal consequences.”
Guttenbeil’s experience supports Chien’s observations, as he noted he doesn’t subscribe to the idea that AI will replace paralegals entirely.
As legal leaders design and deploy AI-enabled legal processes with clients, McQuillen mused, “it’s clear there’s no one-size-fits-all solution”.
“While paralegals often handle ‘second order’ legal tasks, their work still calls for knowledge and the exercise of discretion – areas in which current AI systems still have limitations. Much of the paralegal workload involves working with existing documentation, such as ensuring party details, references, and context are correct across documents,” he said.
“Tasks like these are far less prone to hallucination than broader, more open-ended legal research, which can sometimes result in AI-generated ‘phantom’ cases. In our experience, when a paralegal uses AI for focused, document-specific tasks, both the prompt and the output tend to be much more reliable.”
Even in familiar legal territory, he said, operational and strategic differences call for tailored workflows.
“Paralegals play a vital role here, curating knowledge, understanding business needs, and shaping tools for real-world use. They are also instrumental in monitoring and refining these systems over time,” he said.
“The paralegal of the future will lean into project management, user experience, and stakeholder coordination, focusing on quality and usability.”
Looking ahead
Rather than displacing paralegal roles, Cathcart said, AI has the potential to elevate them.
“By equipping paralegals with the right tools, training, and visibility, firms can empower them to take on more meaningful, strategic work – setting them up for long-term success in their legal careers,” she said.
Ongoing changes to the technological landscape do not mean, in the medium to long term, that paralegals will be replaced, Chien said – “but only if the role and mindset of paralegals and legal assistants shift from processing-type activities into more contextual and judgment-based activities”.
These are skills, he noted, that most in such roles would already have, but they need to be refined.
Put another way, Chien said, there needs to be a recognition that paralegals’ and legal assistants’ real contribution lies in their ability to examine context, to make judgments from that context, and to engage with people.
“Rather than spending time collating or administrating data, paralegals and legal assistants will likely be utilised in client intake work, assisting in application of legal principles to far-ranging factual contexts, and even the review of AI-generated outputs throughout the legal workflow,” he said.
Leaders in the profession, Chien continued, “must first understand the limitations of generative AI and the need for human oversight, and second, paralegals and legal assistants must be trained not only in how to use AI, but also how to question it, and third, [leaders must] encourage and foster strategic thinking”.
The future for paralegals, Guttenbeil added, is not about competing with AI, nor being replaced by it, “but about becoming skilled collaborators with these new tools – using their domain expertise to direct and optimise what AI does best”.
Ultimately, Sequoiah-Grayson surmised, paralegals “have a new professional duty”.
“This duty is to learn to navigate the generative landscape of this new artificial intelligence, if only because of its encroachment upon their domain of professional obligations,” he said.
“This is not a hypothetical – again, we are here already. Now.”
Paralegals, he concluded, are set to be busier than ever thanks to GenAI (“just like the rest of us in time”). How this will play out, he said, is anyone’s guess.
Jerome Doraisamy is the managing editor of Lawyers Weekly and HR Leader. He is also the author of The Wellness Doctrines book series, an admitted solicitor in New South Wales, and a board director of the Minds Count Foundation.
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