Experts predict chaos if law firms don’t improve disconnected workflows
Conveyancing experts are warning that fragmented use of AI and a rush to adopt without proper planning could bring chaos to an already struggling industry.
Their warnings follow discussions at this year’s Digital Conveyancing Summit held at the beginning of October. The biennial event, hosted by digital conveyancing platform InfoTrack, brought together almost 500 lawyers and technology experts.
The sentiment was reflected in the 2026 Digital Conveyancing Maturity Index (DCMI), which was launched at the event. The Index saw law firms’ Digital Maturity Score rise from 54.4% in 2024 to 59.8% in 2026, an increase of 9.9% in relative terms.
However, when it came to AI, although 85% of firms surveyed use at least one kind of AI, more than two-thirds (69%) described AI adoption as individual experimentation, only 18% had rolled it out across a team, and only 14% said it was embedded as standard practice.
The biggest AI use cases in conveyancing were client reports (42%), document analysis (38%), and enquiries (38%).
Review before rollout
Speaking at the event, Angela Morreale-Devereaux, legal specialist at LawY, urged firms to address inefficient processes, fragmented systems, poor-quality data and disconnected workflows before scaling the use of AI.
She said: “Some firms are really forward-thinking about tech and want to train staff in everything that is available. But I’ve been speaking to lots of people who don’t know what to do with the tools. From a strategic point of view, if you’re paying employees to spend a certain amount of time on the job, but they’re spending hours doing something AI can do in 10 minutes, then are you really getting value out of what you’re paying them?”
Sam Jordan, chief operating officer at InfoTrack UK, said adoption needs better coordination to deliver the greatest benefit. “We’re in an AI contradiction. AI use is widespread. Governed, firm-wide adoption is not. Content tasks are the most common named AI uses because outputs are visible and can be professionally reviewed, but critical risk assessment and triage remain much less common. The opportunity now is to apply the same discipline to use cases with measurable operational value, such as identifying missing information, surfacing exceptions, or supporting deadline management.”
