This article discusses the Legal Services Board's AI in Legal Services Research Report, dated 13 April 2026 and released on 11 June 2026. It was authored by Michael Keating and Ruth Gosling and conducted with the LSB Public Panel.
Key takeaways
The strongest positive use case for AI in legal services is a different way to deliver legal support.
The AI in Legal Services Research Report suggests consumers are optimistic about practical improvements: ease of use, accessibility and affordability.
Some consumers will use AI end to end. Some will use AI alongside legal advice. Others will use it to understand, draft, challenge, organise and decide what to do next.
The first-principles point is simple: there will never be enough legal professionals to meet all consumer legal need through traditional one-to-one advice.
Most people experience the legal system as a confusing moment in ordinary life. A landlord raises the rent. An employer refuses sick pay. A contract looks risky. Often, they need useful legal information now.
The Legal Services Board's AI in Legal Services Research Report shows that people already see AI as a way to make legal support easier to access.
The report's expert interviews describe consumers using tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini to check contracts, research rights, draft letters or complaints and explore possible options.
The positive case is powerful because well-designed AI can provide legal support in ways traditional services often cannot replicate: instantly, consistently, outside office hours and across document-heavy problems.
Consumer legal need | What AI can do differently | Why this matters |
|---|---|---|
Help outside office hours | Answer questions, explain documents and draft next steps in the evening or at weekends. | Legal problems do not arrive neatly between 9am and 5pm. |
Instant explanation | Turn legal language into plain English immediately. | Consumers often need clarity before they can make any decision. |
Consistency | Apply the same review structure across letters, contracts or legal packs. | A repeatable process can make support feel less arbitrary. |
Document-heavy problems | Summarise, compare and flag issues across large packs of material. | This is where AI can do work that is hard to replicate manually at consumer prices. |
This is why the debate needs to move beyond "AI before a lawyer". AI is a new service delivery model.
This also fits what consumers told the LSB. Free and paid tools may differ in speed, features or convenience, while accuracy, transparency, privacy and accountability belong in every tier.
What the report says | Why it matters for consumer legal AI |
|---|---|
"AI tools directly providing free or relatively affordable legal advice." | Consumers may use AI as the main support for some legal problems. |
"I think it will increase access to justice because people will be able to understand their rights better" | AI can help consumers understand rights they might otherwise never act on. |
"AI tools could improve the affordability of legal services" | The affordability story is central to why consumer legal AI matters. |
"they can just ask it [AI tool] in the evening when they get home." | Availability outside office hours is a real service-design advantage. |
"The tool is quick, confident and reassuring. It drafts letters, summarises his rights" | Consumers value AI that turns legal uncertainty into practical next steps. |
"AI could absorb the whole encyclopaedia of law and catch details that even solicitors miss" | Document and information-heavy review is one of AI's clearest strengths. |
"If the tool wants to take action, I expect full consent as a minimum." | The next generation of AI legal tools can make user control clearer than many current digital services. |
Consumers also want control. The research shows strong expectations around consent before AI tools take consequential action. That is a product-design challenge, not an argument against AI legal services.
The access-to-justice opportunity is real because traditional capacity will never be enough. There will not be enough affordable professional hours to meet every consumer legal need. AI can help fill that gap with immediate, consistent and document-aware support at a scale human-only services cannot match.
The future should not be framed as humans versus machines. The better frame is more legal help, delivered in more ways: AI-only for some consumers, AI plus legal advice for others, and regulated professionals where the consumer chooses that route or the law requires it.
About Unwildered
Unwildered was founded in 2023 and is building a leading AI tool for consumer legal use cases. Our mission is to make high-quality justice and legal information affordable, accessible and equitable globally.
About the Research
The independent research discussed above is the Legal Services Board's AI in Legal Services Research Report, dated 13 April 2026 and published on 11 June 2026.
