A groundbreaking study has revealed that artificial intelligence tools can now match and sometimes surpass human lawyers in several legal tasks. The Vals Legal AI Report (VLAIR), released on February 27, 2025, marks the first comprehensive evaluation of legal AI tools against human performance.
The study assessed four leading AI platforms: Harvey, CoCounsel (Thomson Reuters), Vincent AI (vLex), and Oliver (Vecflow). Harvey emerged as the top performer, achieving an impressive 94.8% accuracy in document Q&A and leading in five out of six tasks it undertook. The AI system demonstrated superior performance in document analysis, information retrieval, and data extraction.
CoCounsel also showed remarkable results, scoring 77.2% in document summarization and maintaining consistently high performance across all tasks, with an average score of 79.5%. The study revealed that AI tools were significantly faster than human lawyers, operating up to 80 times quicker in some instances.
However, human lawyers still maintained an edge in specific areas. The study showed that lawyers outperformed AI in EDGAR research (70.1%) and redlining (79.7%), indicating that certain complex legal tasks still require human expertise.
The research involved a consortium of prominent law firms, including Reed Smith, Fisher Phillips, McDermott Will & Emery, and Ogletree Deakins, evaluating over 500 real-world legal tasks. The study’s blind methodology ensured participating lawyers were unaware they were part of a benchmarking exercise.
This landmark study suggests a transformative shift in legal practice, where AI tools could significantly enhance efficiency while complementing human legal expertise. The researchers plan to conduct annual evaluations, expanding to include more vendors and international jurisdictions.
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Source: Lawnext
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