It's all about the documents

Sarah Tuthill-Kveton, a partner at Chock Barhoum LLP, spends her days combing through stacks of legal documents. These include medical records stretching back decades. Corporate emails numbered in the tens of thousands. Depositions that could fill small libraries.

"In civil litigation, it's all about the documents," she explains. "Lawyers have to review thousands of documents, if not tens of thousands of documents in any given case."

It's the kind of work that drives some fresh law school grads to quit. And some would-be lawyers quit before they even start. According to Sarah, law school enrollment dropped in approximately 2010, in the midst of the financial crisis. The result was a deficit in the legal workforce, particularly among attorneys with ten to fifteen years of experience, which is the sweet spot.

"If you're looking for an attorney that's got ten to fifteen years of experience, good luck finding someone still in litigation," Sarah says.

Those who remain in the industry face weeks of summarization work. A recent murder case at Sarah’s firm involved not just thousands of documents but thousands of hours of video footage that paralegals had to watch, catalog, and summarize. ‍

AI helps tame the document overload

That’s why Sarah chose CaseMark, an AI platform that quickly and securely summarizes documents such as depositions and medical records.

With a vision to help attorneys all across the litigation lifecycle, from intake to appeal, CaseMark has focused its foundation on the biggest problem first: turning legal documents into useful information. Need a deposition summary? Twenty-five dollars. A medical chronology spanning twenty years of treatment? 20 cents per page.

Versus the three hundred and fifty dollars it would cost to have an attorney do the same work, or competitors’ software that costs $82,500 per year before you even can try it.

Ethical considerations

But Sarah’s enthusiasm for CaseMark is deeper than simple cost savings. She's convinced that AI adoption isn't just good business, but also good ethics. Under American Bar Association Rule 1.1, attorneys must maintain competence in relevant technologies. "Refusing to use AI could actually be an ethics violation," she argues.

"Law schools don't teach you how to be a lawyer"

Sarah has witnessed how AI can address one of the legal profession's most persistent problems: the learning curve facing new attorneys. She notes, "Law schoosl don't teach you how to be a lawyer." Junior associates regularly receive memos returned completely marked up in red ink, "which really crushes your soul," she says. AI can shorten that apprenticeship by helping new lawyers understand what matters in a case and why.

“How do you maintain attorney-client privilege while using AI” is a security question that keeps many law firms awake at night. Fortunately, it’s been solved through platforms like CaseMark that achieve SOC II Type 2 and HIPAA compliance.

SOC II Type 2 means CaseMark has undergone third-party auditing of its security controls over an extended period (not just a point-in-time assessment). For lawyers, this demonstrates that client data is protected by enterprise-grade security measures that are continuously monitored and verified.

HIPAA compliance is crucial because many legal cases involve medical records and health information. When lawyers upload medical documents to analyze, HIPAA compliance ensures the platform handles this protected health information according to federal privacy requirements.

Therefore, these certifications mean lawyers can use AI document analysis without violating attorney-client privilege or their ethical duties to protect confidential information. In other words,the platform has safeguards that meet the same standards as hospitals and financial institutions.‍

“A profession deeply rooted in traditions”

Still, some lawyers will resist. "Law firms and attorneys in general are notorious for resisting change," Tuthill-Kveton admits. The profession remains "deeply rooted in traditions," preferring the familiar inefficiencies of manual document review to the uncertainties of technology.

And some worry that AI will eliminate jobs, though Tuthill-Kveton argues the opposite. In a profession facing severe labor shortages, AI enables lawyers to take on more cases while focusing on higher-value work like courtroom advocacy and client counseling.

"AI will help lawyers do their jobs better"

The transformation at Chock Barhoum LLP offers a glimpse of what the future might hold for legal practice. When facing a thirty-day deadline to respond to a settlement demand involving thousands of pages of records, the firm no longer spends two weeks simply organizing and summarizing documents. Instead, they can dive immediately into the work of case analysis and client consultation. It's the difference between drowning in paperwork and actually practicing law.

Sarah has become something of an evangelist for AI speaking at events and to journalists, convinced that early adopters will capture outsized advantages while holdouts fall behind. The legal market, she predicts, will split between firms that embrace AI and those that don't, with predictable consequences for client service, case capacity, and profitability.

In an industry where change typically moves at a slow pace, Sarah is an example of an attorney who is embracing new technology instead of resisting it. As she puts it, “AI won't take lawyers' jobs, it's just going to make you do it better."