Five ways AI is changing document review for Australian legal teams

Reading through documents one-by-one, coding for relevance, screening for privilege and building chronologies.  

All this before any real legal analysis can begin. 

AI is changing that. Not by replacing lawyers, but by changing what lawyers spend their time on. Here is what that looks like in practice. 

1. You can ask questions in plain language instead of building search strings 

Traditional document review relies on keyword searches and Boolean logic. AND, OR, NOT, proximity operators, wildcard characters. Getting those search strings right requires technical expertise, and even then they miss context. A document that never uses the word “payment” but clearly discusses a payment will not be found by a keyword search for “payment.” 

AI-assisted review works differently. Instead of building a search string, you describe what you are looking for in plain language. The same way you would explain it to a junior lawyer.  

Claira then: 

• translates the description into a prompt that can be tested against a single document,  

• refines until the output matches your review criteria, and  

• then scales across an entire collection in a single Bulk Scan. 

The practical result is that your most experienced people spend their time refining the legal strategy, not building search queries. 

2. First-pass review takes hours, not days 

Document review accounts for the largest share of eDiscovery spend on most matters. It is consistently estimated at more than half of total task costs by industry research over the past decade. The volume of electronically stored information continues to grow, which means the problem gets worse every year without a fundamentally different approach.  

Claira's Bulk Scan processes thousands of documents per hour, delivering results directly into your review platform in real time. A collection that would take a team of reviewers days to work through at standard review rates can be triaged in hours. Your team then focuses on the documents that actually matter rather than working through the full collection sequentially. 

For clients, that translates directly to lower review costs and more predictable budgets, which is increasingly what sophisticated clients expect before authorising a matter to proceed. 

3. Privilege screening becomes structured and auditable 

Privilege screening is one of the highest-risk tasks in document review. Inadvertent disclosure of privileged material, particularly at trial preparation stage, can have serious consequences for the matter and for the client relationship. Traditional manual privilege screening relies heavily on individual reviewer judgment, which is inconsistent and difficult to audit after the fact.  

AI-assisted privilege screening works differently.

Claira screens for solicitor-client privilege, litigation privilege, common interest privilege and settlement privilege using prompts that are tested and refined before being applied across the collection. Every flagged document includes structured reasoning, that is, not just a privilege call but an explanation of why the document has been flagged, which the supervising lawyer can read, verify and rely on when preparing the privilege log. 

That structured reasoning is also what makes the privilege screen defensible if it is challenged. You can show exactly how the decision was made, not just that a decision was made. 

4. Images, audio and video are transcribed then searchable by Claira

One of the most common practical limitations of collections, including images, video and audio, is that these files are not text searchable.   

Claira can review audio, video and image files and describe what she sees or hears in text so that it is searchable. For matters where this material is significant, such as disputes and investigations, this is a genuine step change in what can be achieved by utilising AI to transcribe these documents.   

5. Chronology building goes from days to hours

Building an accurate chronology of events across a large document collection is one of the most time-consuming tasks in trial preparation. Done manually, it requires a senior lawyer or paralegal to read through hundreds or thousands of documents, extract dated events and communications, and assemble them into consistent, sortable format. This process can take days on a complex matter.  

Claira generates chronologies directly from the documents collected using natural language prompts. Dated events, decisions and communications are extracted across the entire collection in a single Bulk Scan, producing a structured, sortable output that the legal team can verify, annotate and deliver to counsel. A task that previously consumed days of senior lawyer time can now be completed in hours, freeing that time for the higher-value analytical work that clients are actually paying for.  

What stays the same 

AI changes how document review gets done. It does not change who is responsible for it. 

The supervising lawyer remains accountable for every review decision, including: 

• Relevance calls 

• Privilege claims 

• Chronology accuracy, and 

• Certification of the review. 

What changes is that those decisions are now supported by structured, auditable reasoning rather than relying solely on individual reviewer judgment, and they are reached far more efficiently than manual review allows. 

At eDiscovery Collab, our senior-led team works with you throughout every Claira matter by designing prompts, testing results, applying QC processes and ensuring the review your team certifies is traceable and defensible.  

Claira accelerates the work. We make sure it is done right. 

Read more about Claira AI here.

This blog is general information only.