Can AI make legal protection more affordable?
AI is changing how legal work is done in the UAE’s fast-growing legal services market. It can free about 30% of a lawyer’s time on routine tasks such as document review and first-pass drafting, but the bigger prize is what that time can buy, like more legal protection for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) from the same budget. A contract review that once consumed an afternoon can now be…
AI technology is transforming the legal services market in the UAE, making legal protection more affordable for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). By automating routine tasks such as document review and drafting, AI can free up about 30% of a lawyer's time, allowing them to handle more work for the same budget. For instance, a contract review that once took an afternoon can now be completed within minutes.
This shift in efficiency creates additional capacity for lawyers, with the UAE's legal-services market projected to grow 52% from $5 billion in 2024 to $7.6 billion by 2030.
The main beneficiaries of this increased capacity are SMEs, who will now be able to afford earlier and broader legal protection for a fixed price. This model ensures that professional judgment is still present, as clients will resist paying for the reduced time spent on tasks. The UAE Ministry of Justice has already begun to embrace agentic AI, reducing the case file review process from days to hours.
However, with this increased efficiency comes new challenges, such as ensuring the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated legal advice. Error is now a measurable operating cost, with studies showing that legal research systems can produce hallucinated or unsupported answers in up to 33% of tests. To mitigate this risk, a verification budget must be established, which includes source-linked answers, mandatory citation checks, confidential deployment, logged revisions, and named human approval.
While AI adoption is growing rapidly in the legal sector, with 69% of legal professionals using general-purpose generative AI in 2026, proper governance and training are still lacking in many firms. To address this, some firms, like Ropes & Gray, are investing in extensive AI training and simulations for junior lawyers to learn how to critically evaluate AI-generated output.
The UAE can lead the way in this new era of legal AI, ensuring that technology is used to compress tasks, improve efficiency, and maintain the chain of responsibility.
Written by urgent.news from Gulf News's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
