How Legal Ops Can Prevent AI-Generated Errors in Legal Workflows

Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming embedded in the way legal teams work. But as recent headlines show, it’s also capable of producing serious mistakes. In one defamation case, a MyPillow attorney filed a brief containing roughly thirty fabricated citations, every one generated by AI. It was an embarrassing moment, and it won’t be the last.

These missteps aren’t just courtroom spectacles. For in-house teams, AI misuse can lead to inaccurate advice, exposure of confidential information, and reputational damage inside the business. At the same time, legal departments don’t have the option to sit out. For those legal teams who are embracing AI, it is already accelerating workflows, reducing low-value tasks, and raising expectations from the business. And those who aren’t are feeling pressure from the C Suite to do so.

So the real question is straightforward: How does Legal Ops make sure AI improves accuracy instead of undermining it?

Legal Ops is already responsible for the systems, workflows, and guardrails that keep the department running. That makes this function the natural owner of AI governance, and the one best positioned to prevent AI-generated errors before they reach the business.

The Risks of AI Without Oversight

AI “hallucinations,” or outputs that sound authoritative but are factually wrong, are now widely documented in legal settings. Most legal hallucinations fall into predictable patterns: invented citations, misapplied laws, incorrect contract terms, or overly confident summaries that are inaccurate.

For an in-house team, these aren’t theoretical risks. A single unverified AI output can compromise privilege, send the business down the wrong path, or damage credibility with internal stakeholders. Worse, mistakes made through AI often look polished, which means they’re more likely to slip past a quick review.

Experts across the industry agree on one point: AI can speed up legal work, but it cannot replace legal judgment. Without human review and well-defined workflows, including the steps, handoffs, checks, and approvals that keep work accurate, AI can create exactly the kinds of risks legal departments are supposed to prevent.

This is where Legal Ops comes in.

Why Legal Ops Owns the AI Governance Challenge

Legal Ops already sits at the intersection of people, process, and technology, the exact levers needed to govern AI responsibly.

This function oversees workflow design, vendor selection, change management, data security, and risk frameworks. When a department adopts a new system, Legal Ops evaluates it, implements it, and ensures teams use it consistently. AI is simply the next evolution of our mandate.

In practice, Legal Ops drives:

• Policy development and updates as AI capabilities evolve

• Vendor vetting for AI-powered tools and contract clauses

• Training and enablement for lawyers, admins, and business partners

• Integration of AI into existing processes without creating gaps or blind spots

Legal Ops isn’t reacting to the rise of AI. It is the operational control center that ensures AI is used accurately, securely, and with intention.

Common Pitfalls Legal Ops Can Help Prevent

Below are the high-risk failure points that consistently appear when legal teams adopt AI without proper guidance. These are solvable, but only with structure.

• Fabricated citations
  When attorneys or business partners skip the verification step, AI-generated citations, quotes, and case law can slip into filings or analysis.
• Privilege leaks
  Uploading documents, draft contracts, or sensitive internal facts into public AI tools can waive privilege or expose regulated data.
• Unapproved AI notetakers
  AI note takers can be incredibly helpful for capturing action items and freeing people up to participate fully in meetings. The risk comes from using tools that have not been reviewed for consent, security, or data handling standards. With the right approvals in place, AI note taking becomes a safe and valuable part of the workflow.
• Over-reliance on AI summaries
  Teams may copy-paste AI-generated clause summaries, issue analyses, or risk flags without checking accuracy, applicability, or nuance.
• Shadow AI tools
  Individual attorneys or business clients experiment with free tools the company never approved, creating untracked risk.

Most of these issues aren’t malicious. They come from unclear policy, inconsistent training, and a general assumption that the output is automatically correct. Legal Ops can remove that guesswork.

How Legal Ops Can Build Responsible AI Habits

The core mindset is simple: trust the tool, but verify the output, and do it wisely. Legal Ops can define thresholds for review so that verification happens where it matters most. Not every AI-generated email summary or clause suggestion needs a second set of eyes; what matters is designing workflows that apply human review proportionally to the risk and impact.

Once that balance is set, Legal Ops can put structure behind it through these practical steps:

1. Build a cross-functional AI policy
   Work with Legal, IT, InfoSec, and Compliance to create a clear policy that does two things: protects the company and actively encourages the responsible use of AI. The policy should spell out what tools are approved, how to use them safely, and where to go with questions. When the guardrails are clear and simple to follow, teams feel confident adopting AI instead of avoiding it.
   

2. Establish an AI tool approval workflow
   Create a fast, predictable process for evaluating AI-enabled vendors, reviewing their data practices, and documenting approvals.
   

3. Set checkpoints inside legal workflows
   Add explicit verification steps in drafting, research, reviewing, and summarizing work. Make “human in the loop” a baseline requirement.

4. Add AI awareness to onboarding and ongoing training
   Every new hire should understand the rules of engagement, including approved tools, data restrictions, and the verification standard. Existing staff should get periodic refreshers as capabilities evolve.

5. Track usage patterns
   Monitor how the department uses AI so you can spot where risks are increasing, where training is needed, or where certain tools are underperforming. This will also support an ROI analysis later on.

Legal Ops doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel, but instead just apply the same discipline used for any critical technology. To make that easier, we created a practical, two-page Legal Ops AI Governance Checklist you can use to kick-start or refine your program.

Final Thoughts

AI is transforming legal work, but without governance, it multiplies risk as quickly as it creates efficiency. Legal Ops is the function equipped to lead with clarity, structure, and accountability, ensuring AI raises the department’s standards instead of lowering them.

If you want a straightforward way to get started, get the Legal Ops AI Governance Checklist and see how L Suite members are building real frameworks, comparing policies, and sharing what actually works in practice.