[author: Lauren Burnside]
Why AI for Legal Workflow Automation Matters More Than Ever
For as long as professionals have looked for ways to move faster and smarter, workflow automation has been the engine driving progress – making routine tasks seamless, building accountability, and fueling data-driven decisions.
Now, in 2025, we’re seeing the rise of agentic workflows, where AI doesn’t just assist, but actively drives outcomes, to redefine what’s possible. And at the center of this evolution is a robust foundation: AI for legal workflow automation software.
When you combine workflow automation and AI, you achieve more than just efficiency. It’s adaptability, foresight, and a new level of partnership between technology and the legal team.
The Evolution from Workflow Automation to Agentic Workflows
To understand how we arrived at today’s AI-driven, agentic workflows, it helps to look at the evolution of legal operations technology in three stages: from workflow automation software, to AI-enhanced processes, and finally to fully agentic workflows.
Stage 1: How Workflow Automation Shaped Legal Ops
Workflow automation has been a game-changer. Tools that automate legal intake and routing with pre-defined “if, then” logic. Automating processes like matter intake, self service contracting and approvals, compliance checks, or escalations gives legal ops professionals the ability to:
- Standardize processes across teams and geographies
- Capture the right data at the right moments
- Drive accountability with clear task ownership
- Generate metrics for continuous improvement, workload allocation, and staffing
This stage builds the discipline of legal operations: consistent processes, visible metrics, and a culture of change readiness.
Stage 2: The AI-Enhanced Era of Legal Operations
The next leap came with AI assisting those workflows. AI for legal workflow automation can summarize contracts, classify documents, and identify potential issues. This helps teams work more efficiently and accurately. However, in the majority of instances, AI served as a supplement, not a catalyst.
Stage 3: The Rise of Agentic Workflows
Agentic workflows represent the next stage. Here, AI doesn’t just support the workflow; it becomes an active agent within it.
Picture a process where AI sorts requests. It directs them to the right place based on their complexity. Next, it drafts an initial reply for review. Or a compliance process where AI flags anomalies, recommends actions, and updates the workflow automatically.
This evolution shifts legal ops from reactive process managers to proactive strategists empowered by AI-driven decision-making.
Why Workflow Automation Software Is Foundational for AI
Organizations must lay the groundwork before agentic workflows can take hold. They rely on the foundation that AI for legal workflow automation software has already laid via process automation, metrics, and governance.
Workflow automation provides that foundation through four key elements:
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Data hygiene that AI requires
Workflow automation software captures the structured metrics that AI needs to learn and recommend (think cycle times, matter types, and spend indicators).
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Framework for intelligent automation:
With defined processes, AI can route tasks, suggest actions, or trigger pre-built workflows such as NDAs, policy checks, or compliance reviews.
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Governance and security at the core:
Legal ops leaders understand the need for data protection, role-based access, and privacy controls. These are prerequisites for embedding AI with confidence.
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Change readiness:
Rolling out workflow automation software builds stakeholder buy-in, user adoption, and governance muscles – all essential for AI success.
The right legal workflow automation software connects today’s automation with tomorrow’s smart workflows. The result is a legal operations function that is faster, more accurate, and fully prepared to embrace AI-driven, agentic workflows.
The Combined Benefits of Workflow Automation and AI
According to a recent study by Deloitte, workflow automation can, on its own, decrease errors by 50% and increase process efficiency by 40%. Looking ahead, layering AI for legal workflow automation on top of that foundation could compound these gains, adding smarter decision-making and predictive insights.
When combined, workflow automation and AI unlock a multiplier effect:
- Smarter decisions with AI for legal workflow automation: AI can analyze trends from workflow data and recommend actions, while the software executes those decisions consistently across the organization.
- Efficiency with context and insight: Automation handles the “what” and “when,” while AI provides the “why” and “how.” For example, automation might assign a compliance review, while AI highlights clauses that need special attention.
- Unified policy & workflow access, centralizing resources so employees can find answers and initiate actions from a single, AI-powered interface.
- Predictive operations: With metrics from workflows and insights from AI, legal ops leaders can move from lagging indicators (e.g., “what happened last quarter”) to leading indicators (e.g., “what’s likely to happen next”).
- Scalable innovation across legal ops: Once teams digitize workflows, AI can layer on top to accelerate innovation. A new matter type? A fresh compliance requirement? AI can adapt workflows faster than manual reprogramming ever could.
How Mitratech ARIES™ Supports the Future of AI for Legal Workflow Automation
ARIES™, Mitratech’s governance-grade AI ecosystem, brings together smart agents, digital assistants, and embedded AI capabilities to transform how work gets done with consistent, trustworthy, and secure capabilities.
In its latest rollout for Mitratech Workflow Automation, ARIES™ is built to:
- Provide conversational access to workflows and data
- Offer secure, role-based insights and actions
- Enable pre-built, natural-language-driven workflows, such as NDAs and compliance lookups
- Maintain trust and compliance through stringent data governance and privacy standards
- Tailor workflows and access controls to each organization’s unique policies and business processes.
It’s more than just a solution – it’s the connective intelligence that further transforms workflow automation into future-ready, AI-powered operations.
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