The increased use in AI has not translated to a reduction in fees for most, the survey found, with just 26% of lawyers responding that their use of AI had resulted in lower client fees.<\/p>\n
Reduced fees were more likely to be reported by those working for business clients (34%) compared with individual fee-paying clients (23%).<\/p>\n
Some reported AI had enabled them to take on work that would have previously been uneconomical (18%).<\/p>\n
The principal researcher and report co-author, Dr Georgie Rychner, said fee reductions in corporate and big firms could be attributed to the fact clients in those settings were repeat users of legal services.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a high level of legal capability,\u201d she said. \u201cThey also are perhaps using AI in their own work, so they have a better understanding and are able to advocate for lower prices \u2026 whereas we\u2019re not seeing that as much in the community legal system sector.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rychner said the efficiency gains of using AI were not as high as expected, but that in 2025 the survey found 89% of practitioners said they had taken steps to verify the accuracy of AI output, which might have negated the gains.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter |When needed<\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n In 2026 there had been a rise in clients using AI for their own legal research, she said, with 46% of lawyers reporting their clients were arriving with inaccurate or misleading information, and 41% presenting AI-generated documents that required correction.<\/p>\n Nearly half of lawyers said there was an increase in time and effort required if their clients used AI, compared with 19% who said it led to a reduction in time and effort.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we are hearing is that clients are more frequently arriving with misleading or inaccurate information about their legal problems, more so than they\u2019re arriving with a better understanding of legal problems,\u201d she said, adding that more research was needed to understand client perspectives.<\/p>\n Courts and legal practitioner bodies across Australia have been grappling with the rise in AI use among lawyers and the public since 2023.<\/p>\n A Victorian lawyer last year was the first in the country to face sanctions<\/a> for false citations discovered, being stripped of his ability to practise as a principal lawyer. Investigations were also launched by regulatory bodies in Western Australia<\/a> and New South Wales<\/a> in similar cases.<\/p>\n The federal court in April issued new rules<\/a> around using generative AI, while the chief justice of the high court, Stephen Gageler, said last year the use of AI-generated content<\/a> in legal cases had reached an \u201cunsustainable phase\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than half of Victoria\u2019s lawyers have reported using AI in their work, according to a new study,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":945884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-945883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1793328970_775_2998.jpg\")
<\/p>\n