Job Check
Paralegals and Legal Assistants
Assist lawyers by investigating facts, preparing legal documents, or researching legal precedent. Conduct research to support a legal proceeding, to formulate a defense, or to initiate legal action.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Prepare affidavits or other documents, such as legal correspondence, and organize and maintain documents in paper or electronic filing system.AI could speed this up a lot
- 02Prepare, edit, or review legal documents, including legislation, briefs, pleadings, appeals, wills, contracts, and real estate closing statements.No rating yet
- 03Investigate facts and law of cases and search pertinent sources, such as public records and internet sources, to determine causes of action and to prepare cases.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 04Prepare for trial by performing tasks such as organizing exhibits.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 05Meet with clients and other professionals to discuss details of cases.Mostly human for now
- 06Gather and analyze research data, such as statutes, decisions, and legal articles, codes, and documents.People already use AI for this at work
- 07File pleadings with court clerks.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 08Direct and coordinate law office activity, including delivery of subpoenas.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 09Call upon witnesses to testify at hearings.Mostly human for now
- 10Arbitrate disputes between parties and assist in the real estate closing process, such as by reviewing title searches.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job loss29%of this job’s work time goes to tasks that people already do with Claude at work, counting tasks where AI only helps as half (2026).Anthropic, 2026
53%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 13% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Meet with clients and other professionals to discuss details of cases.
- Call upon witnesses to testify at hearings.