By Beau Wysong, Opus 2.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a buzzword in the legal industry for years, but many law firms and litigation teams are still in the early stages of evaluating its practical applications. As law firms define their AI strategy and explore ways to gain an edge in litigation, a use-case-driven approach—focusing on solutions that address specific pain points, rather than general AI platforms with broad applications—has proven to be most effective. By integrating AI into existing workflows, firms can maximize the benefits of AI and ensure their litigation team has every advantage.
Among AI’s many applications in legal technology, case management stands out as a natural and highly impactful starting point. Case management encompasses a firm’s most critical litigation processes, including document analysis, case strategy development, chronology building, deposition preparation, and transcript management. When AI is embedded into these workflows, legal teams can extract key insights faster, streamline trial preparation, and gain a competitive edge.
Addressing litigation market trends with AI
A recent report on law firm litigation departments from Ari Kaplan Advisors highlights the increasing complexity of litigation. The findings bring the value of using AI for case management in an increasingly competitive market into focus:
93% of litigation support directors report rising data volumes in cases
60% see increasing data as a significant challenge
83% expect caseloads to grow over the next 12 to 18 months
As the volume of case-related data grows, the manual processes of reviewing, extracting, and summarizing key information may become untenable. AI offers a scalable solution to these challenges, helping firms manage larger, more complex caseloads while maintaining the quality of their legal work.
When asked about AI’s role in litigation, 87% of leaders indicated that AI-enabled case management offers a competitive advantage. In addition, respondents identified top use cases for AI within litigation workflows including document analysis, transcript management, chronology creation, and case strategy.
Why case management is a high-value AI application
Case management work centers around structured data and hot documents that have already been reviewed for relevance during discovery. This makes case management an ideal application for AI for lawyers, as it reduces the risk of generating irrelevant or misleading outputs. Compared to eDiscovery—where AI must sift through vast volumes of unfiltered data—AI in case management operates within a well-defined dataset, leading to more precise and actionable insights.
Leveraging AI within case management processes offers several advantages:
Increased speed and accuracy – AI-assisted tools can quickly analyze case documents, highlight key evidence, and identify patterns that might otherwise be missed
Stronger case strategy development – AI helps connect related data points, linking facts, events, and key players into a structured narrative offering crucial context
Efficient deposition and trial preparation – AI can summarize depositions, organize transcripts, and surface relevant issues in seconds, allowing litigators to prepare more effectively
Higher return on investment (ROI) – By reducing time spent on repetitive, administrative tasks, AI allows legal teams to focus on high-value strategic work
The two approaches to AI for case management
When bringing AI into case management, there are two main approaches. Either using standalone AI tools or leveraging AI capabilities within case management solutions.
The first approach, adopting standalone AI solutions, can have varied results. These broad AI solutions may require customization and skilled prompt engineering to deliver value to litigators. Many standalone AI tools require firms to move data across multiple systems, which can introduce errors and create unnecessary friction. Moreover, these tools typically require users to manually craft prompts to extract meaningful insights, increasing the risk of inconsistencies and low adoption rates. These factors can diminish the value, efficiency, and insights gained from AI.
In contrast, adopting AI within legal case management software, seamlessly integrates AI into existing workflows, ensuring that results are immediately actionable. For example, rather than exporting thousands of documents to an external AI tool to identify events to add to a chronology, a case management platform with embedded AI can surface key events directly within the system, dynamically linking them to the source documents. This not only improves efficiency but also builds trust, as AI-generated outputs remain transparent and easily verifiable within a single platform. In addition, users don’t have to spend time learning how to use another new tool, removing a common barrier to adoption.
Overall, for AI to be a success in litigation, law firms need to focus on:
Choosing legal-specific AI solutions – AI tools within existing platforms designed specifically for litigation workflows to provide more reliable results than generic AI applications
Maintaining attorney oversight – AI should support decision-making, not replace it. The best solutions provide transparency, citations, and control over outputs
Demonstrating measurable success – Firms can build trust by tracking AI’s impact on case timelines, cost savings, and overall litigation outcomes
Gain a competitive edge with AI-assisted case management
With mounting caseloads, increasing data complexity, and growing competition, law firms that fail to modernize their case management processes risk losing their edge. AI-driven case management presents a clear path forward—offering faster insights, improved strategic decision-making, and the ability to scale operations without sacrificing quality.
For firms looking to integrate AI into their practice, case management is the perfect entry point. By starting with a targeted AI use case, firms can prove its value, increase adoption, and position themselves at the forefront of legal innovation.
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To see Opus 2’s award-winning, AI-enabled case management platform in action, request a demo.
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About the author: Beau Wysong, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing, Opus 2.
[ This is a sponsored article for AL by Opus 2. ]
