{"id":131667,"date":"2025-08-21T05:15:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T13:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/08\/21\/agentic-ai-is-the-fetch-of-legal-tech-and-we-need-to-stop-trying-to-make-it-happen\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T05:15:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T13:15:14","slug":"agentic-ai-is-the-fetch-of-legal-tech-and-we-need-to-stop-trying-to-make-it-happen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/08\/21\/agentic-ai-is-the-fetch-of-legal-tech-and-we-need-to-stop-trying-to-make-it-happen\/","title":{"rendered":"Agentic AI Is The \u2018Fetch\u2019 Of Legal Tech And We Need To Stop Trying To Make It Happen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supposedly, the word of the year in technology is \u201cagentic.\u201d By the end of the year it\u2019ll probably be \u201cbubble,\u201d<\/a> but for now the world is meant to tremble before the awesome promise of agentic. It takes AI to a whole new level! It heralds the new human-free workforce! It keeps Woody Harrelson out of the rain<\/a>! As the shiny object economy grows complacent with magic interactive chatbots, the agentic AI<\/em> era to transform those humdrum chatbots into something\u2026 else.<\/p>\n

The hype machine gods must feed and are only satisfied with the blood of freshly squeezed buzzwords. What does \u201cagentic\u201d even mean? \u201cThe term \u2018agent\u2019 is one of the most egregious acts of fraud I\u2019ve seen in my entire career writing about this crap, and that includes the metaverse,\u201d writes tech journalist Ed Zitron<\/a> and, somehow, he might be too forgiving. The agentic talk means everything and nothing all at once. That\u2019s the power of an empty signifier! Heap whatever vague hopes and dreams you can into this rhetorical nugget and let it carry you to a sale and another round of funding.<\/p>\n

In theory, agentic AI represents the leap from autocomplete-on-steroids to autonomous action \u2014 taking an understanding of the user\u2019s goals and setting out on its own to get the job done. Imagine a cybersecurity bot<\/a> surveying the evolving threat landscape and inventing its own countermeasures as new viruses emerge all while you\u2019re still fumbling with two-factor authentication. Other tech companies promote agents that monitor your calendar and autonomously decide to book your dinner, or buy flowers, or plot the grisly demise of your enemies.<\/p>\n

But since lawyers entrusting this sort of autonomy to AI would be, to use the technical term, \u201cmalpractice,\u201d agentic AI doesn\u2019t really sing to this market. If you think hallucinated case citations are bad, wait until the agent takes it upon itself to settle your client\u2019s divorce for pennies on the dollar based on Kirshner<\/em>. Even if you\u2019re not in Kentucky.<\/p>\n

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So why would anyone hoping to sell to lawyers \u2014 which presumably describes the folks on the ILTACON<\/a> exhibit floor \u2014 indulge in the term \u201cagentic\u201d at all?<\/p>\n

For the most part, it\u2019s because their agentic AI isn\u2019t really agentic AI. At least not the way anyone trying to fuel a half trillion dollar valuation would use the term. <\/p>\n

We first encountered this a couple months ago when we saw Thomson Reuters preview its \u201cagentic\u201d offerings<\/a>. Despite adopting the word-of-the-moment, the Thomson Reuters product felt more like a glorified automation product \u2014 which is good! Feed it case files, it does some research, it brainstorms some claims or defenses, does a little more research, and spits out a draft. That\u2019s useful and can jumpstart a lawyer\u2019s work, but it\u2019s not so much an autonomous agent. If one were so inclined, they could enter \u201cbased on these case files, come up with claims, perform relevant legal research, and present me with a first draft motion\u201d into a bot and (provided it had some way of accessing valid legal research other than its own fever dreams) get the same result right now. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not so much agentic as it\u2019s a batch file.<\/p>\n

At ILTACON, Lexis<\/a> showed off a similar feature and added a bit more to the agentic soup by explaining that they use different models for different tasks, making the request more complicated than simply asking ChatGPT a multipart prompt. Fair, but that\u2019s still not an \u201cagent\u201d as much as professionally designed prompting. <\/p>\n

When I raised my irritation with the whole agentic conversation with Tiana Van Dyk, Senior Director of Client Services at Epiq<\/a>, she characterized (at least within the legal context) agentic as automation with prompts. \u201cIs it that simple?\u201d she mused. \u201cThere\u2019s more in there, because if you have all the wrong models tied to all the wrong steps, you\u2019re gonna get a bad outcome.\u201d From her perspective, the challenge in legal tech right now is demystifying these technologies for lawyers. \u201cWhat we\u2019re missing in the industry, is our ability to translate the academia and the complex nature of some of these systems into something that is accessible.\u201d <\/p>\n

Though with agents the battle isn\u2019t with the academics as much as the advertising execs. They\u2019re the ones pitching autonomous decision makers to the world and the legal tech vendors have to come back and tell the lawyers, \u201cha ha, yeah, no, our product really doesn\u2019t do all that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s frustrating, because it sounds like I\u2019m downplaying the significant talent and expertise that goes into making these processes work right. Automation is hard! Making sure the process gets it correct every time takes a lot of strategic thinking and meticulous effort. But I keep reminding myself that it\u2019s not my fault that this sounds dismissive, it\u2019s the wholly unnecessary decision to set the bar at HAL 9000.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say there aren\u2019t niches within the legal workflow that could use genuine agentic AI. Cybersecurity is still a legal industry concern. The billing process might be ripe for something at least closer to agentic. Oddr<\/a> doesn\u2019t lean on the word agentic in their materials \u2014 hurray! \u2014 but its end-to-end revenue platform that automates the firm through billing, collections, payments and forecasting is much closer to the level of streamlined automation through several different systems than what many companies would plaster the word agent all over. Still, it\u2019s not \u201cevolving\u201d its approach to the billing process unless it independently figures out how to call Rocco and Vinnie to pay a visit to that one delinquent client.<\/p>\n

Legal tech vendors have a Scylla and Charybdis problem. On one side, they\u2019re tech companies who feel compelled to go with the tech trend flow or look like they\u2019re not \u201ccutting edge\u201d enough. On the other side, they cater to a legal profession that needs to be coaxed into tech adoption like frightened bunnies, soothed by reassurances that \u201cthis won\u2019t really change how you\u2019ve done this job for the last hundred years.\u201d <\/p>\n

The good news, is that lawyers can relax. Healthy skepticism is always welcome, but don\u2019t let the \u201cagentic\u201d branding \u2014 and all the tech industry baggage that comes with it \u2014 scare you off of legal tech products. The providers who specialize in this space didn\u2019t suddenly forget who they\u2019re dealing with. They know that firms aren\u2019t in the market for a product that\u2019s going to start trying to \u201chelp\u201d by making legal decisions on its own. Like Old Man Jenkins, the carnival caretaker who would\u2019ve gotten away with it if it weren\u2019t for you pesky kids, if you look underneath the hood of that \u201cagentic\u201d offering and you\u2019ll find familiar prompts driving a familiar, vetted automation. <\/p>\n

Useful, maybe even transformative at the margins, but not something making decisions. <\/p>\n

The real danger is that buzzwords like \u201cagentic\u201d \u2014 and the delirious bucket of magic beans promises that comes with it \u2014 will scare lawyers into missing out on useful tools. But it\u2019s the nature of this industry that we have to constantly push back against promises that thrill venture capital while terrifying lawyers. By next year there will be some new empty signifier. Symphonic AI\u2026 turning multiple agents into ebbing and flowing actors within a unified, goal-oriented symphony of voices.<\/em> Or some equally bullshit phrase. <\/p>\n

That is, unless \u201cbubble\u201d really does take over first. <\/p>\n

Earlier<\/strong>: Dispatches From The AI Bubble: ILTACON 2025<\/a>
\u2018Agentic\u2019 AI Is The Hot Buzzword\u2026 But Do Lawyers Actually Want An Agent?<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Agentic AI Is The \u2018Fetch\u2019 Of Legal Tech And We Need To Stop Trying To Make It Happen<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Photo by ChatGPT)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Supposedly, the word of the year in technology is \u201cagentic.\u201d By the end of the year it\u2019ll probably be \u201cbubble,\u201d<\/a> but for now the world is meant to tremble before the awesome promise of agentic. It takes AI to a whole new level! It heralds the new human-free workforce! It keeps Woody Harrelson out of the rain<\/a>! As the shiny object economy grows complacent with magic interactive chatbots, the agentic AI<\/em> era to transform those humdrum chatbots into something\u2026 else.<\/p>\n

The hype machine gods must feed and are only satisfied with the blood of freshly squeezed buzzwords. What does \u201cagentic\u201d even mean? \u201cThe term \u2018agent\u2019 is one of the most egregious acts of fraud I\u2019ve seen in my entire career writing about this crap, and that includes the metaverse,\u201d writes tech journalist Ed Zitron<\/a> and, somehow, he might be too forgiving. The agentic talk means everything and nothing all at once. That\u2019s the power of an empty signifier! Heap whatever vague hopes and dreams you can into this rhetorical nugget and let it carry you to a sale and another round of funding.<\/p>\n

In theory, agentic AI represents the leap from autocomplete-on-steroids to autonomous action \u2014 taking an understanding of the user\u2019s goals and setting out on its own to get the job done. Imagine a cybersecurity bot<\/a> surveying the evolving threat landscape and inventing its own countermeasures as new viruses emerge all while you\u2019re still fumbling with two-factor authentication. Other tech companies promote agents that monitor your calendar and autonomously decide to book your dinner, or buy flowers, or plot the grisly demise of your enemies.<\/p>\n

But since lawyers entrusting this sort of autonomy to AI would be, to use the technical term, \u201cmalpractice,\u201d agentic AI doesn\u2019t really sing to this market. If you think hallucinated case citations are bad, wait until the agent takes it upon itself to settle your client\u2019s divorce for pennies on the dollar based on Kirshner<\/em>. Even if you\u2019re not in Kentucky.<\/p>\n