Top 10 AI Tools Every Legal Professional in Sioux Falls Should Know in 2025

Sioux Falls lawyers should treat legal AI in 2025 as a practical advantage, not just a buzzword: industry reports show AI is already embedded in research, contract review, e‑discovery and client communications, and clients increasingly expect tech‑savvy counsel (see the 2025 Guide to Using AI in Law).

Evidence from major studies even notes dramatic time savings - some drafting workflows dropped from 16 hours to 3–4 minutes - so local firms that adopt responsibly can reallocate time to strategy and client care.

That said, vendors and ethics guides stress careful vendor vetting, data governance, and privilege protection; next‑gen document systems are built to keep content in place while adding AI features (read the AI‑Driven Legal Tech Trends for 2025).

For South Dakota practitioners seeking hands‑on upskilling, the AI Essentials for Work bootcamp covers prompts, tool workflows, and workplace use cases to integrate AI safely into firm systems.

Recommended resources: the MyCase 2025 Guide to Using AI in Law (MyCase guide to AI in law, 2025), NetDocuments' AI‑Driven Legal Tech Trends for 2025 (NetDocuments legal tech trends 2025), and Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work bootcamp (AI Essentials for Work syllabus and registration).

Program details: AI Essentials for Work - 15 Weeks; Early bird cost $3,582; Syllabus and registration available at AI Essentials for Work syllabus and registration.

Selection began with a simple, local-first filter: tools had to solve problems Sioux Falls firms actually face - time‑hungry drafting, contract review, e‑discovery and client intake - while matching regional priorities like data governance, ethics, and measurable ROI; that's why vendor security, clear integration paths, and training support were weighted heavily.

Benchmarks included demonstrated productivity gains (local workshops even tout saving small businesses 5–10 hours a week), availability of nearby expertise or implementation partners, and fit with existing firm workflows and compliance needs, so resources like Opinosis Analytics' tailored AI consulting in Sioux Falls and Dakota State University's outreach informed our shortlist.

We also screened for vendor transparency on retention and encryption, ease of staff upskilling, and features that preserve the human touch emphasized by local practitioners and the Chamber - because the right AI should free attorneys for strategy and client care, not replace judgment.

Tools that passed both technical and practical tests made the Top 10: those that deliver real time savings, offer clear paths for secure deployment, and come with training or local support to help Sioux Falls firms adopt responsibly.

Learn more about regional perspectives on adoption from the Sioux Falls Chamber's overview of workplace AI and Opinosis' service list for practical implementation.

“I took the opportunity to propose a public‑private partnership to build an AI agent resource hub for small businesses in the state to drive both academic excellence and practical impact,” Zeng said.

For Sioux Falls practitioners balancing heavy litigation dockets and tight client budgets, Lexis+ AI offers a familiar, trusted home for research and drafting: its Protégé assistant (built into Lexis+ AI) combines proprietary LexisNexis content with a private workspace, DMS integrations (iManage, NetDocuments, SharePoint), and multi‑model options (including GPT‑5, GPT‑4o and Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4) so teams can draft motions, discovery, deposition questions, and client letters with jurisdiction‑aware first drafts and citation‑backed support.

Protégé's Vault lets firms keep precedent and sensitive files under firm control while the system analyzes up to ~1 million characters (roughly 300 pages) at a time - handy for long contracts or consolidated case files - while LexisNexis' security, encryption and Responsible AI checks preserve confidentiality; Forrester‑style ROI figures cited by the vendor underline the business case.

Learn more about the Lexis+ AI legal research platform and its drafting features on the Lexis+ AI product page and review Protégé's capabilities on the dedicated Protégé product page to evaluate fit for South Dakota workflows.

Feature	Why it matters
Protégé + Lexis+ AI	Integrated drafting, research, and citation‑backed answers
Protégé Vault	Up to 50 vaults (1–500 docs each); firm‑controlled storage for AI tasks
Large‑document processing	Handles ~1 million characters (~300 pages) for summaries and timelines
Security & models	Multi‑model approach, Azure/AWS hosting, encryption, and privacy controls

“The LexisNexis evolution from extractive to generative to agentic AI makes our legal AI solutions easier than ever to use, helping customers accomplish a remarkable amount of work without needing to be an expert in prompting.” - Min Chen, Chief AI Officer, LexisNexis

For Sioux Falls litigators and civil practitioners who need fast, jurisdiction‑specific answers, Westlaw Edge pairs familiar Westlaw authority with AI tools built for courtroom strategy: AI‑Assisted Research and WestSearch Plus jumpstart queries with links to trusted cases and statutes, AI Jurisdictional Surveys produce a tailored starting point for state‑by‑state law, and Litigation Analytics surfaces judge and court patterns that help set realistic expectations for local dockets - in short, the platform turns hours of docket digging into clear, actionable insights.

Quick Check flags missed or contrary authority in briefs, Statutes/Regulations Compare saves manual comparison time, and KeyCite Overruling Risk helps avoid citing bad law, all useful when South Dakota deadlines loom.

Evaluate fit and training options on the Westlaw Edge product page or dive into feature details on the Westlaw Edge features page to see how these tools map to firm workflows and risk‑management needs.

“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.

CoCounsel (formerly Casetext) is worth a hard look for Sioux Falls practices that need fast, defensible research, transcript summaries and deposition prep: built on Westlaw/Practical Law content and agentic workflows, it combines Deep Research, document analysis and Word integration so teams can move from issue‑spotting to drafting without hopping between apps, and the vendor cites measurable speedups (CoCounsel Legal notes roughly 2.6x faster document review and drafting and high user‑reported gains).

Practical tests show CoCounsel will summarize a normal‑sized transcript in minutes and can generate deposition outlines and targeted questions - features that can free up time on routine personal‑injury or municipal dockets - yet hands‑on reviewers also flagged limits when ingesting very large corpora and warned that outputs need human verification.

For Sioux Falls attorneys, the blend of Westlaw‑grounded citations and end‑to‑end workflows helps preserve checklistable accuracy while still requiring the professional judgment that South Dakota ethics rules demand; read the Thomson Reuters CoCounsel product overview or an independent hands‑on CoCounsel review to weigh fit for your firm.

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

Harvey AI positions itself as a domain‑specific legal assistant that can meaningfully speed up South Dakota workflows by keeping drafting and review inside the tools lawyers already use: a Draft Editor for in‑platform generation and a Microsoft Word Add‑In for “ask” and “edit” modes that let attorneys tighten clauses or add remedies without breaking their flow - an example the vendor highlights is strengthening an SLA to add uptime remedies or service credits.

Built for firms, Harvey's Knowledge Vault and custom models let Sioux Falls practices ingest precedents and firm templates so outputs are context‑aware, and enterprise deployment on Azure with Vault workspaces aims to address the data‑governance and privilege concerns local firms weigh when vetting vendors.

For transactional teams juggling contracts and for litigation groups needing fast, citation‑backed research and automation, Harvey's multi‑model workflows and Word integration make routine drafting less grunt work and leave more time for strategy; see Harvey's drafting announcement and the Harvey AI product overview for features and deployment options.

“Now, I can stay in Harvey longer - I can draft, edit, and revise without needing to move my work out of the platform.” - John LaBarre, General Counsel at Harvey

Spellbook makes contract drafting and redlining feel less like busywork and more like intelligent assistance - its Word add‑in surfaces Smart Clause Drafting (now powered by Library) so lawyers can pull the exact language they've used before without interrupting their flow to rummage through folders for ten minutes; ask in plain English and the tool finds, inserts, and adapts precedent language to fit the current deal.

Designed for transactional teams and in‑house counsel, Spellbook supports multi‑document review, playbooks and AI‑driven clause suggestions inside Microsoft Word, and the vendor sells enterprise features (SOC 2, GDPR/CCPA options) with custom pricing and a short free trial for demos.

For Sioux Falls firms weighing adoption, see the Spellbook Library announcement on LawNext about precedent‑aware drafting and the detailed feature/pricing overview that notes Word integration, multi‑doc support and security controls to help judge vendor fit and vendor vetting for client confidentiality.

Feature	Notes
Smart Clause Drafting (Library)	Searches and adapts your precedents directly in Word (LawNext)
Microsoft Word Add‑in	Drafting and redlining without leaving Word
Multi‑document support	Compare and review multiple contracts at once
Security & compliance	SOC 2, GDPR/CCPA options; custom enterprise controls (pricing overview)
Pricing & trial	Custom pricing; 7‑day free trial available

For Sioux Falls firms deciding how to tame growing contract backlogs, HyperStart CLM reads like a practical playbook: it centralizes legacy documents with high‑accuracy AI metadata extraction (the vendor touts ~99% accuracy), offers no‑code intake forms and templates so new contracts can be created in about two minutes, and provides workflow automation and AI redlining that aim to shave weeks off negotiation cycles - HyperStart even highlights in‑flight analytics and a rapid ship option that can get a repository live in days rather than months (read the HyperStart feature overview and the workflow guide).

Planning a rollout? Benchmarks matter: mid‑market CLMs such as LinkSquares commonly show standard deployments in the 2–4 month range, so expect to phase work to protect live deals and avoid change fatigue (see the Concord implementation timelines).

For small firms or in‑house teams, the upshot is simple: prioritize a CLM that (1) centralizes contracts, (2) reliably extracts obligations, and (3) gives legal staff no‑code tools to automate renewals - evaluate HyperStart against other market options and pick the path that balances quick wins with data governance and client confidentiality.

Capability	Why it matters for Sioux Falls firms
AI metadata extraction (~99%)	Turns legacy files into searchable obligations and deadlines
No‑code intake & templates (~2 min creation)	Speeds routine contracting so lawyers focus on high‑value review
Workflow automation & dashboards	Reduces TAT, automates renewals and approval routing
Rapid vs standard rollout	HyperStart: days to ship; LinkSquares typical timeline: 2–4 months (plan phased deployment)

For Sioux Falls litigators juggling municipal dockets, tight deadlines, and limited review budgets, RelativityOne demonstrates how a modern e‑discovery platform can keep complex work local teams can actually manage: collect defensible ESI directly from Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack and even ChatGPT Enterprise, process large data sets quickly, and move seamlessly into a single Review Center where AI‑assisted queues and customizable workflows surface the documents that matter first; see RelativityOne's overview and the Collect feature for specifics.

Built‑in tools address real courtroom needs - redaction for sensitive PII, privilege‑focused AI to shrink disclosure risk, integrated audio/video transcription and instant translation into 100+ languages - and reviewers can even see collaboration threads “with emojis included,” which can make context obvious at a glance.

For small South Dakota firms, the practical upside is straightforward: keep evidence in one secure workspace, run targeted collections to cut review volume, and lean on Relativity's training and certification resources to get staff ready without reinventing processes (check Relativity's training and production workflows pages for implementation guidance).

Feature	Why it matters for Sioux Falls firms
Targeted cloud collection (Collect)	Limits scope and cost by collecting only relevant ESI from modern sources
Relativity aiR (generative AI)	Speeds first‑pass review and privilege identification for faster case assessment
Transcription & translation	Turns audio/video and foreign language files into searchable text for efficient review
Production tools & workflows	Customizable production and reporting help meet tight court deadlines defensibly

“Relativity helps us organize all the streams of evidence and provides the analytics capabilities we need to conduct an intelligent investigation, fast. Having mastery of the facts, with certainty, changes the game entirely.” - Bennett Borden

For Sioux Falls litigators and in‑house counsel, Lex Machina and companion tools such as Lexis® Verdict & Settlement Analyzer turn intuition into evidence: their Legal Analytics platform lets attorneys profile judges, courts, opposing counsel and parties across all 94 federal district courts and thousands of state venues so teams can forecast motion success rates, likely timelines to termination, and realistic settlement ranges - critical when municipal dockets and tight budgets demand accurate case budgeting.

Use Lex Machina's generative analytics and Legal Entity/Litigation Footprint views to map an opponent's nationwide litigation history or to compare outcomes in comparable jurisdictions, and tap verdict data to anchor settlement demands with actual award figures.

A vivid example: Litigation Footprint displays a U.S. grid with color‑coded state boxes that instantly reveals where a company litigates most, a visual shortcut that helps choose venue or prioritize discovery strategy.

In short, these tools give Sioux Falls firms defensible, data‑driven levers for early case assessment, motion strategy and client counseling.

“Litigation Footprint provides the ability to investigate the litigation track records for companies in over 1,330 state courts and 94 federal district courts… This enables you to craft successful litigation strategies, win cases, and close business by leveraging the broadest Legal Analytics coverage in the industry.” - Karl Harris, CEO of Lex Machina

For Sioux Falls firms that want to stop letting intake steal billable hours, Smith.ai's hybrid AI‑plus‑human approach reads like a practical playbook: 24/7 AI Receptionist and live virtual receptionists capture, screen and qualify leads, book appointments, record and transcribe calls, and push data into CRMs and calendars via thousands of integrations so intake becomes a revenue engine, not a time sink - small practices often reclaim 10–12 hours each month once repetitive tasks are automated.

Plans scale from an AI‑first starter tier (roughly $97.50/month for 30 calls) to human‑first receptionist plans (starting around $292.50/month), with bilingual support, warm handoffs, payment collection and white‑glove onboarding to map scripts to firm workflows; explore the feature breakdown on Smith.ai's intake page or read their comparative guide to client intake tools to see real case studies and ROI. For South Dakota firms, the key decision is vendor fit: pick the hybrid or specialist intake path that preserves confidentiality, integrates with your case‑management stack, and frees attorneys for strategy.

Feature	Smith.ai notes
Pricing	AI Receptionist from ~$97.50/mo (30 calls); Virtual Receptionist from ~$292.50/mo
Core capabilities	Lead screening, intake, booking, call transcription, CRM & calendar integrations, bilingual support
Client impact	Reported time savings (platforms like these can reclaim ~10–12 hours/month for small firms)

“Smith.ai is a plug-and-play intake process and a built-in sales machine.” - Gyi Tsakalakis, Attorney

Next‑gen search tools like Perplexity AI are already practical for Sioux Falls lawyers who need fast, source‑backed answers: Perplexity blends real‑time web crawling with LLM reasoning to deliver citation‑rich research, statute interpretation and comparative analyses - so a prompt specifying “South Dakota comparative negligence law” yields a concise, verifiable starting point rather than a scattershot link list.

Perplexity Pro and Enterprise add document upload, Spaces for an internal knowledge base, and automatic transcription of audio/video (time‑stamped, speaker‑identified) so a 60‑minute deposition can become searchable and highlightable for issue spotting; firms can pair Perplexity's research threads with drafting tools to save first‑pass research time while keeping human verification in the loop.

For small South Dakota practices, the best practice is to include jurisdiction in prompts, store precedents in a Space, and verify all citations before filing - this keeps client work defensible while turning research hours into billable strategy time.

Plan	Notes
Free	Unlimited basic searches; limited Pro searches and file uploads
Pro ($20/mo)	Advanced models, larger file uploads, 300+ Pro searches/day
Enterprise Pro ($40/mo per seat)	Team management, admin controls, bulk document indexing and privacy controls

Sioux Falls practices ready to move from curiosity to adoption should take three practical steps: (1) pilot one high‑value workflow - research, contract review, e‑discovery or intake - so the firm can measure hours saved (HyperStart's roundup shows many firms reclaim large chunks of time and even projects that once took 16 hours can drop to minutes); (2) vet vendors for SOC‑2, encryption, and clear data‑retention policies and run short trials before wide rollout (start with a focused contract or intake pipeline), and (3) upskill the team so judgments keep pace with automation - Nucamp's AI Essentials for Work is a 15‑week, practitioner‑focused option that teaches promptcraft, tool workflows, and workplace safety to make pilots repeatable and defensible.

Pair pilots with firm metrics (time per task, error rate, client satisfaction) and a staged rollout - small wins build trust, then scale to CLM or eDiscovery for bigger gains.

For practical tool ideas and market context see HyperStart's Top 25 Legal AI Tools guide and review Nucamp's AI Essentials syllabus and registration to plan training alongside procurement so technology amplifies rather than disrupts client service (HyperStart 2025 Top 25 Legal AI Tools guide, Nucamp AI Essentials for Work syllabus and registration).

AI Essentials for Work	Details
Length	15 Weeks
Courses	AI at Work: Foundations; Writing AI Prompts; Job Based Practical AI Skills
Early bird cost	$3,582 (after: $3,942)
Syllabus	AI Essentials for Work syllabus
Registration	Register for AI Essentials for Work

“With generative AI, we have this new wave coming in. We're going to give you 40% of your hours back.” - HyperStart Knowledge Suite