Spellbook, a generative AI platform for lawyers, has launched its latest innovation called Spellbook Associate, dubbed the first AI agent designed specifically for legal professionals.
Scott Stevenson, Spellbook’s chief executive officer and co-founder, described the new Spellbook Associate as an AI that could execute complex, multi-step legal projects using a single prompt and that could complete tasks across multiple documents and applications.
Unlike traditional AI tools that generate a single response, Spellbook Associate works across various platforms to revise documents, analyze data, and adjust its approach as needed, said a blog post by Stevenson.
Spellbook Associate aims to support the work of transactional lawyers, particularly those belonging to smaller teams or handling complex, time-sensitive transactions. The tool seeks to handle the more tedious and time-consuming tasks often assigned to junior associates, the blog post said.
According to the blog post, Spellbook Associate can draft entire financing documents from a single term sheet, create employment packages in minutes, develop disclosure schedule templates, review document sets to identify risks and inconsistencies, flag potential issues, and suggest fixes.
The AI agent also acts as a learning tool to help new lawyers understand legal processes and document management as they work, the blog post said. Users can integrate the tool with Microsoft Word so that it can be a part of their typical workflow.
Junior associates not replaced, co-founder says
The introduction of Spellbook Associate has sparked discussion about the future role of junior associates in law firms.
While the AI agent might take over some mundane tasks traditionally performed by junior associates, its intent is not to replace them, Stevenson said. Instead, it could reshape the role and make it less about repetitive tasks and more about strategic contributions, Stevenson added.
Spellbook Associate aims to act as an extension of human lawyers to reduce the monotonous aspects of legal work, the blog post explained. Lawyers can then use the time freed up to focus on critical, high-value activities such as strategy, negotiation, and client relationship building, the blog post said.
Spellbook’s co-founder, Daniel Di Maria, reflected on his own experience as a new lawyer and noted that much of the work involved splicing, pasting, and editing Microsoft Word documents.
“It wasn’t what I envisioned, and I don’t think it’s what lawyers are meant to do,” Di Maria said.
“We predict that in the next five years, every lawyer, junior or senior, will work closely with their own AI associate,” Stevenson added in the blog post. “Lawyers did not rack up student debt and spend years of their lives studying in order to spend 10 hours a day in Microsoft Word.”
Two years ago, Spellbook introduced what it called the first generative AI copilot for lawyers. Since then, over 2,500 legal teams have adopted and started using the copilot. Last year, Spellbook launched an AI contract review tool, which has already reviewed millions of contracts, according to the blog post.