By Darsan Guruvayurappan, Co-founder, Lucio AI.

Most legal research does not end when the answer is found, it ends when the time runs out.

Let me explain. Nobody writes ‘I stopped at the fourteenth judgment because it was 9pm and the fee was fixed.’ But, unfortunately that is how most legal research ends now. It ends when the cost of looking further outweighs the likely value of what might turn up, not when every relevant authority has been found. Research has always been rationed by time, by budget and by what a client will accept on a bill.

Our profession has made its peace with this. The ABA’s Model Rule 1.1 asks for the ‘thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation’ and ‘reasonably’ has always been measured against what was feasible. A competent associate is expected to find the leading authorities, follow the obvious lines and know when the next search stops paying.

Well, most of the debate about AI in legal research asks two questions: are the answers right and how quickly do they arrive and both matter. But the more consequential shift is way quieter. And AI is changing where the stopping point sits. When reading three hundred authorities takes about as long as reading twenty, the economics of thoroughness change. In time, so will expectations of what reasonable research looks like.…

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