Buyer tool · capacity, cost and pilot design

Legal AI ROI
calculator.

Build a transparent business case from your own workload. Count lawyer verification, adoption and software cost instead of presenting generation speed as guaranteed savings.

YOUR BASELINE

Model one repeatable workflow

Use loaded internal cost for a conservative capacity model. Use a billing rate only when reclaimed time can realistically become additional billable work.

What this legal AI ROI calculator measures

The model compares current workflow effort with a partially adopted AI-assisted process. It treats verification as real work, leaves non-adopted matters at their existing time and subtracts the software estimate from modeled capacity value.

Reclaimed hours = current effort − assisted work − lawyer verification − unchanged workNet value = reclaimed hours × defensible hourly value − software cost

Capacity value is not automatically cash saved or revenue earned. A law firm only realizes revenue when reclaimed time becomes additional collectible work. An in-house team may realize value through capacity, faster service or avoided external spend rather than payroll reduction.

Use assumptions you can defend

01

Choose one workflow

Do not blend research, contract review and litigation work into one average. Their inputs, risk and verification burden differ.

02

Measure the baseline

Sample completed work before the pilot. Include intake, waiting, rework and quality control when those steps are within scope.

03

Count correction

Verification time includes finding missed issues, repairing citations, reformatting and rebuilding unreliable output.

04

Discount adoption

Not every matter is suitable, and not every lawyer will use the workflow immediately. Model the likely usable share.

Turn the model into a pilot

  1. Freeze a representative sample and acceptance standard.
  2. Record current elapsed time and active lawyer time separately.
  3. Run the same task with the configured AI workflow.
  4. Measure generation, correction, verification and handoff time.
  5. Record missed material issues and unsupported additions.
  6. Replace every calculator assumption with the observed result.

Use Gotham's 40-criterion legal AI scorecard alongside the financial model. A workflow with attractive capacity economics still needs to pass accuracy, confidentiality, governance and implementation gates.

Important: This is a planning aid, not a forecast, quote or guarantee. Results depend entirely on the assumptions entered and do not include implementation cost, taxes, financing, risk-adjusted error cost or every operating dependency. Validate the model with finance, security and qualified legal reviewers.