Top 10 AI Tools Every Legal Professional in New Zealand Should Know in 2025

For New Zealand legal professionals in 2025, AI has moved from curiosity to competitive necessity: global studies that include New Zealand respondents show individual lawyers are adopting generative AI faster than firms, using it to speed research, draft correspondence and automate admin while firms balance accuracy, ethics and data security - issues that stall firm‑wide rollout.

The upside is tangible: modern legal AI can save roughly 240 hours per lawyer per year, freeing time for strategy and client work rather than repetitive drafting.

But the real win for NZ practices is strategic adoption - pick tools that integrate with trusted software and train teams to oversee outputs - advice underscored in the Thomson Reuters 2025 research and practical for anyone ready to move from experiment to ROI. For lawyers wanting practical, workplace-ready AI skills, Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work bootcamp offers a 15‑week syllabus on prompts, tools and real tasks to help firms adopt responsibly and confidently.

Year	Personal Use	Law Firm Use
2024	31%	21%
2023	27%	24%

“The role of a good lawyer is as a ‘trusted advisor,' not as a producer of documents … breadth of experience is where a lawyer's true value lies and that will remain valuable.”

To reflect New Zealand's cautious, trust‑focused context we evaluated each tool against a compact set of practical, NZ‑specific criteria: alignment with the New Zealand Law Society's Generative AI guidance (risk checklists, supervision and client disclosure) and the Privacy Commissioner's expectations for PIAs and human oversight; clear data residency or contract terms (can inputs be used to train models? are outputs licensed?); enterprise security and certifications; presence of legal domain expertise in product development; and realistic change‑management support including trials and training.

These yardsticks draw on the Law Society's checklist for lawyers using Gen AI (New Zealand Law Society generative AI guidance for lawyers), the Privacy Commissioner's practical questions summarised in sector guidance (New Zealand Privacy Commissioner guidance on AI usage), and platform compliance analysis under the Privacy Act 2020 (data residency, retention and training opt‑outs) in the NewZealand.AI review (NewZealand.AI review of AI platform compliance with the Privacy Act 2020).

In short, tools had to promise more than flashy demos: they needed transparent terms, verifiable privacy protections, and vendor support that keeps a misplaced prompt from becoming a cross‑border privacy problem.

CoCounsel from Thomson Reuters is a professional‑grade GenAI assistant that's built to plug directly into the legal workflows New Zealand firms already use - linking Westlaw, Practical Law and Microsoft 365 while offering local support and NZ‑focused onboarding.

Designed to speed research, drafting and document analysis, CoCounsel uses retrieval‑augmented generation to ground answers in authoritative sources, distil complex contracts and judgments into clear overviews in minutes, and generate comparison tables or timelines that make discovery and negotiation work far less tedious.

For NZ practices nervous about rollout, Thomson Reuters offers a free 30‑minute “Getting Started with CoCounsel (NZ)” session (0.5 CPD) and local expert support to help shape prompts, review outputs and reduce supervision risk; explore the product details on the Thomson Reuters CoCounsel New Zealand product page or register for the CoCounsel NZ webinar to see core skills like Summarise, Review Docs, Compare Docs and Draft in action.

“A task that would previously have taken an hour was completed in five minutes or less.” - Jarret Colemen, General Counsel at Century Communities

For New Zealand legal teams, Westlaw Edge builds on the trusted local foundation of Westlaw New Zealand - complete NZ cases, legislation, expert commentary and 2,800+ precedents - while adding AI‑driven speed and strategy: AI‑Assisted Research and WestSearch Plus summon synthesised, sourced answers; Quick Check scans briefs in minutes to surface missed or contrary authority; and Litigation Analytics reveals judges' and courts' track records to sharpen strategy.

Equally important for risk‑aware NZ practice are KeyCite and KeyCite Overruling Risk, which flag problematic authority (Westlaw Edge even shows an unmistakable “orange” implied‑overruling warning so a lawyer can pause and reassess before filing).

Use AI Jurisdictional Surveys and Statutes Compare to produce cross‑jurisdictional surveys and version‑by‑version legislative diffs without manual redlining - helpful when a single missed amendment can change a client's outcome.

In short, Westlaw NZ's local content plus Westlaw Edge's analytics and AI tools let firms move faster without sacrificing the verifiability clients expect; learn more on the Westlaw Edge AI features page or see Westlaw New Zealand local content and practice-area resources.

Feature	Westlaw Classic	Westlaw Edge
KeyCite (citator)
AI‑Assisted Research / WestSearch Plus	-
Quick Check (document analysis)	-
Litigation Analytics / Tracker	-
Statutes & Regulations Compare	-

“I use Quick Check for my own briefs, to give me peace of mind that I didn't miss something or that at the very least I had looked at it and made a determination. That helps me sleep at night.” - Jeunesse M. Rutledge, Associate, Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren s.c.

Lexis+ AI brings a practical, NZ-ready blend of conversational legal search, rapid drafting and document analysis built around the Protégé™ assistant and LexisNexis' authoritative content - features that let lawyers go from blank page to a jurisdiction‑tailored first draft in moments, set a default jurisdiction (handy for New Zealand practice), and run Shepardize® checks inside uploaded documents; the NZ product page outlines Protégé, Vault for secure firm document collections, and the platform's Sydney hosting for Australasian users (see the Lexis+ AI NZ product details).

For firms wanting proof in practice, Holding Redlich's permanent adoption shows the tool working in a real ANZ context, while recent platform enhancements (search, headnotes, GraphRAG and multi‑model RAG) emphasise human‑in‑the‑loop accuracy and usable controls that reduce supervision risk - useful when converting faster outputs into reliable client advice.

Learn more on the Lexis+ AI NZ page or read the release on recent feature enhancements to see how Protégé and Vault can fit into NZ firm workflows.

“At LexisNexis, customers are at the heart of our continuous generative AI development.” - Sean Fitzpatrick, CEO, LexisNexis North America, UK, and Ireland

For New Zealand firms wanting to cut drafting time without outsourcing accuracy, Nuance's Dragon Legal Anywhere brings cloud‑hosted, legal‑specific speech recognition that diktats contracts, briefs and citations roughly 3× faster than typing while preserving formatting and specialised vocabulary; see the Dragon Legal Anywhere product details and features.

Designed to slot into existing workflows, the solution runs on Microsoft Azure with strong encryption and high availability, includes Dragon Anywhere Mobile so lawyers can capture instructions at the point of contact, and supports regional accents (helpful for NZ practitioners) and shared custom vocabularies that follow users across devices.

Practical controls - Anchor Focus Dictation so dictated text anchors into a document even while referencing other windows, custom voice commands to insert clauses, and the Nuance Management Center for central licence and customization management - make it easy to scale with firm governance in place.

For firms planning a stepwise rollout, implementation guides and reseller notes outline training, integration with case and document systems, and a low‑friction one‑click install model that keeps IT overhead small; learn more on the Nuance New Zealand site.

Feature	Dragon Legal Anywhere
Speed	Dictation ~3× faster than typing
Deployment	Cloud‑hosted on Microsoft Azure
Security	256‑bit encryption; enterprise hosting
Mobility	Includes Dragon Anywhere Mobile (syncs customisations)
Firm controls	Nuance Management Center for admin & shared vocabularies

Actionstep's cloud practice and matter management platform is built for midsize New Zealand firms that need one place to run intake, documents, time, billing and trust accounting while automating the repetitive steps that slow teams down; the platform (backed by AWS security and mobile apps) centralises client and matter data, supports document automation and a Builder add‑on for automated drafting, and surfaces smarter time capture and intake workflows so nothing slips through the cracks - think of it, in vendor copy, as a “full‑time personal robot” for the parts of practice that don't need a lawyer's judgement.

Firm leaders can customise workflows to local practice needs, connect Outlook/Office 365, Xero and other NZ‑ready tools via the Integrations hub, and use the Practice Management features to improve profitability and client experience without adding complexity; explore the platform details on the Actionstep Practice Management page or see available integrations in their Integrations directory.

Trusted by 4,500+ firms, Actionstep offers certified partners and implementation support to help NZ firms scale automation responsibly.

“Implementing Actionstep has meant that we didn't need to incur the significant capital and ongoing cost of maintaining a server on‑premise or in the cloud. We have found the system user‑friendly and intuitive. I have heard it as likened to the ‘Xero' for legal practice management software and wholly agree it has the potential to revolutionise the legal industry in a similar way.” - ASCO Legal, Alistair van Schalkwyk, Director

ClauseBase brings intelligent contract drafting to the lawyer's desk with two complementary products: ClauseBuddy, an AI‑powered drafting toolbox that lives inside Microsoft Word and Outlook for first‑draft generation, AI‑assisted reviewing and a fast clause finder; and Clause9, a clause‑based document automation engine built for advanced drafting, conditional logic and intelligent questionnaires that let clauses “change like a chameleon” to fit the contract context.

For busy New Zealand teams the platform's strengths are familiar and practical - speed without sacrificing consistency, central clause libraries with version control to reduce drafting risk, and smart templates that turn precedents into reusable, governed building blocks.

Explore the platform on the ClauseBase site or read the deep dive on clause libraries to see how centralised, searchable clauses cut review time and support safer, scalable drafting workflows.

Feature	ClauseBuddy	Clause9
Primary environment	Microsoft Word & Outlook plugin	Full document automation platform
Draft generation	First draft generation	Advanced clause‑based generation
AI review	AI‑assisted reviewing & proofreading	Compare & compliance controls
Clause library	Clause finder & auto‑extraction	Centralised clause library with versioning
Automation tools	AI document analysis	Advanced questionnaires & conditional logic

“Thanks to ClauseBuddy, we now also have a shared brain of legal drafting knowledge along with a range of other tools that help our lawyers drafter better and faster.” - Raquel Rodriguez, Associate General Counsel at AES

Diligen brings machine‑learning contract analysis that's well suited to New Zealand teams looking to speed due diligence and routine reviews without losing control: the platform automatically identifies hundreds of key provisions, lets users train the system to recognise firm‑specific clauses, and can generate contract summaries in Word or Excel so a large portfolio becomes a searchable, actionable dataset rather than a pile of PDFs.

Designed to scale - from small review projects up to hundreds of thousands of documents - Diligen supports collaboration (assign reviews, filter by party/date/provision) and connects into common workflows via API and storage integrations; see the vendor site for demos on how it handles NDAs, lease review and privacy checks (Diligen contract analysis product page) and review its integration notes for Box, NetDocuments and Clio in the ILTA overview (Diligen overview and integrations on ILTA).

For NZ practices that need consistent, auditable first‑passes on contracts, Diligen offers pre‑trained models and rapid custom training to keep lawyers focused on judgement, not search.

Feature	Detail
Pre‑trained clause models	Hundreds available day‑one
Scalability	From 50 to 500,000+ contracts
Exports	Automatic summaries to Word or Excel
Integrations & API	Box, NetDocuments, Clio; custom API
Custom training	Rapidly train to recognise new clauses/concepts
Security & compliance	SOC‑style enterprise controls and on‑prem options

Perplexity AI is a fast, citation-first research engine that suits New Zealand legal work where verifiability and speed matter: it combines live web search with large language models to produce concise, source‑backed answers, iterative follow‑ups and, on Pro, document uploads and model choice for deeper review - features New Zealand firms can use for first‑pass legal research, client‑friendly explanations and quick reporter‑style summaries.

Practical writeups and user guides show how Perplexity's Pro Search or Deep Research modes run dozens of searches, synthesize hundreds of sources and export focused summaries, turning a pile of PDFs into an evidence‑linked briefing in minutes (and many firms report substantial time savings, with some surveys suggesting research time reductions of up to 40%).

For NZ practices balancing speed, supervision and the Law Society's guidance, Perplexity is best as a research accelerator - start threads to capture sources, verify the citations it returns, then move outputs into governed drafting workflows.

See the hands‑on Perplexity for Lawyers guide or read about Deep Research mode to judge how it could fit into your firm's toolkit.

“We're not just building another AI tool; we're crafting an answer engine tuned to the nuances of legal queries.” - Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity AI

Lex Machina brings data-driven litigation analytics that New Zealand firms can use as a strategic lens when facing multinational opponents or planning cross-border disputes: built by LexisNexis to mine millions of dockets, it surfaces judge and counsel behaviour, time‑to‑trial metrics, motion success rates and party histories so lawyers can turn anecdote into evidence-backed strategy.

Its Litigation Footprint enhancement layers NAICS industry tags, HQ data and affiliate mapping across a corpus that now spans some 27 million cases and 1,300+ state courts, letting teams spot where a counterparty litigates most, compare venue outcomes and assemble pitcher-ready client metrics in seconds - practical when a NZ client faces a foreign‑based litigant or needs early case assessment.

Use Lex Machina's motion metrics and party analytics to identify winning pleadings, quantify likely timelines and select opposing counsel with insight rather than guesswork; see the platform overview on the Lex Machina litigation analytics platform overview and read the Litigation Footprint launch details in the Lex Machina Litigation Footprint launch details.

“Litigation Footprint provides the ability to investigate the litigation track records for companies in over 1,330 state courts and 94 federal district courts encompassing 27 million cases.” - Karl Harris, CEO of Lex Machina

CS Disco's Cecilia AI turns mountains of documents into actionable, evidence‑backed answers - features New Zealand litigation and investigations teams will find hard to ignore: Cecilia Q&A lets lawyers ask plain‑English questions and returns answers with citations, Cecilia Doc Summaries digests long or foreign‑language files in one click, and Cecilia Auto Review can perform a first‑pass review at vendor‑reported speeds (around 25,000 documents per hour), surfacing “hot” documents and helping teams find a pivotal email amid millions in minutes; explore the Cecilia AI product suite (CS Disco) or see DISCO AI-powered eDiscovery features (CS Disco) for details.

The platform emphasises defensibility and security - the LLMs do not train on or retain customer data - and offers managed review, cross‑matter AI models and visual QC tools so firms can reuse learnings across matters while keeping oversight tight, a practical fit for NZ practices balancing speed, cost and supervision.

Metric	Result
Auto Review speed	~25,000 documents per hour
Fact investigation acceleration	~87% faster (user reported)
Ingests completed	85% of ingests completed in 30 minutes

“Cecilia gave me a very clear, concise answer on a newly raised issue and identified key supporting documents. I was able to figure out in 5 minutes what was happening, why it was important, and make a decision based on it.” - Kristopher Wood, Senior Associate, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

Safe, effective AI adoption in New Zealand law firms comes down to disciplined choices: treat tools as powerful assistants, not replacements, and build governance around the risks the New Zealand Law Society highlights - due diligence on vendors, clear policies about data inputs and supervision, privacy impact assessments and client communication (see the New Zealand Law Society generative AI guidance for lawyers).

Practical procurement steps - isolated trials, contract checks on data use, and vendor security questions drawn from supplier checklists - are essential (see the Practical Law AI Tool Vendor Due Diligence Checklist).

Combine those controls with regular staff training and a human‑in‑the‑loop review process so outputs are verified before client use; short, practical courses such as the Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp help teams learn prompts, oversight and safe workflows.

When firms pair vendor vetting, firm policies and ongoing training, AI becomes a reliable accelerator - like a digital proofreader that flags a missed amendment before filing, protecting clients and reputations.

Bootcamp	Length	Early bird cost
Nucamp AI Essentials for Work bootcamp	15 Weeks	$3,582

“There always needs to be a human behind any advice that goes out.”