AI’s Doesn’t Just Produce Faster Legal Work, It Produces Better Work: Insights from Daniel Schwarcz

We’ve all heard that AI can make lawyers better at their jobs. But now there’s data-backed research to prove it. In the latest episode of Between the Briefs by Steno, hosts Adrian Cea and Joe Stephens welcome Daniel Schwarcz, Professor at University of Minnesota, to discuss the groundbreaking paper, “AI-Powered Lawyering” and its empirical findings on how certain AI tools are reshaping legal practice - specifically about retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems and reasoning models. Daniel walks us through eye-opening revelations that reveal how AI integration produces measurable improvements in both efficiency and work quality, while exploring the nuanced challenges, ethical considerations and labor market implications attorneys must navigate. Every lawyer needs proof - this study is all the evidence you could need about AI use in today’s legal landscape.