Victorian lawyers increase AI use, but only 26% report lower client fees

AI is becoming a routine part of legal work in Victoria, Australia, without routinely making legal help cheaper. A new census of 2,221 lawyers found 55% used AI in their practices, up from 37% a year earlier. But only 26% said their AI use had lowered client fees, while clients’ own chatbot use often created more work.

The 2026 census was conducted by the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner’s legal services research centre. Its findings, covered by the Guardian on October 30, distinguish between lawyers adopting AI, clients receiving lower bills and the effort needed to deal with AI-assisted material.

Business clients see more fee reductions

Lawyers working for business clients were more likely to report lower fees: 34% did so, compared with 23% of those serving individual fee-paying clients. The savings were not spread evenly across the two groups.

Dr Georgie Rychner, the principal researcher and report co-author, suggested repeat corporate clients were better placed to push for savings. They have substantial experience using legal services and may use AI themselves, giving them more understanding of the technology and more confidence to negotiate prices.

Lower fees were not the only reported benefit. Some 18% of respondents said AI let them take on work that previously would have been uneconomical. That finding concerns which work lawyers can afford to accept, rather than whether an existing client’s bill falls.

Rychner said efficiency gains were smaller than expected. She pointed to the previous year’s survey, when 89% of practitioners said they had taken steps to verify AI output, as a possible explanation. Checking accuracy may absorb some of the time saved; the census findings are lawyers’ reported experiences, not measured reductions in task time.

Clients bring research—and errors

Clients’ use of AI introduced another source of work. Rychner said 46% of lawyers reported clients arriving with inaccurate or misleading information, while 41% reported AI-generated documents that needed correction. Those figures describe lawyers encountering problems, not the proportion of all client research or documents containing errors.

What we are hearing is that clients are more frequently arriving with misleading or inaccurate information about their legal problems, more so than they’re arriving with a better understanding of legal problems

Dr Georgie Rychner, principal researcher and report co-author, speaking to the Guardian

Nearly half of lawyers said clients’ AI use increased the time and effort required, compared with 19% who said it reduced that burden. This is the lawyers’ perspective on those interactions. Rychner said more research was needed to understand clients’ experiences.

Adoption varies sharply by legal field

The rise in use was no longer concentrated as heavily among younger lawyers. In 2025, adoption had been highest among those under 30. That age gap had largely disappeared in 2026, although use remained low among lawyers aged 60 and over.

Practice areas showed substantial differences. AI use was most common in trade practices, banking and finance, and information technology and telecommunications. Criminal, family and administrative law recorded lower adoption:

• Trade practices: 85%; banking and finance: 78%; information technology and telecommunications: 78%.
• Criminal law: 29%; family law: 45%; administrative law: 46%.