The Productivity Trap: How Context Switching is Costing Lawyers More Than They Realise

25 September, 2025

In today’s fast-paced legal environment, the pressure to produce high-quality work quickly is intensifying. Yet, the very digital tools meant to boost productivity are often doing the opposite.

Lawyers find themselves constantly switching between drafting, researching, reviewing, and formatting, often across disconnected platforms. Instead of streamlining work, this cycle of digital distraction is harming efficiency, accuracy, and well-being.

This challenge has a name: context switching. And it’s costing lawyers more than they realise. But there’s also a breakthrough. Modern AI-powered drafting tools are poised to change the game and offer a way out.

What is Context Switching?

Context Switching is the process of moving from one task or platform to another. While it might seem like a minor inconvenience, research shows it can take up to 23 minutes to regain focus after a disruption. A University of California Irvine study found that workers spend an average of just three minutes on a task before switching.

For lawyers, who deal with complex matters and high-stakes documents, this constant shifting of focus leads to lost time, reduced accuracy, and mounting frustration - even in routine tasks.

The Hidden Cost of Context Switching

Have you ever wondered why a single interruption can derail your entire day? For legal professionals, every context switch comes with a hidden cost.

Studies show that regaining concentration after an interruption can take far longer than expected. In a typical day, lawyers spend precious time toggling between word processors, emails, document management systems (DMS), precedent databases, and research tools.

This constant switching isn’t just disruptive; it actively diminishes efficiency. Each switch chips away at mental energy, contributing to cognitive fatigue, slower turnaround times, and a greater risk of human error. Over time, these subtle inefficiencies accumulate, quietly undermining overall productivity throughout the legal drafting process.

Traditional Legal Drafting: Effective, but Inefficient

Many legal professionals find themselves bogged down by repetitive, low-value drafting tasks that consume a significant portion of their day.

Even highly experienced professionals often spend time manually retrieving templates, reformatting documents, and rewriting standard clauses.

While these tasks are crucial, they are also tedious and time-consuming. Relying solely on manual processes can hinder productivity and compromise consistency.

Although traditional drafting methods have long been the backbone of legal work, they are increasingly misaligned with the pace and expectations of modern practice. To meet today’s standards, legal teams must look toward smarter, more automated solutions that preserve accuracy while eliminating avoidable friction in the drafting process.

The AI-Powered Advantage: Drafting Without Disruption

Enter AI-powered legal drafting tools, revolutionising the way lawyers work by eliminating the cumbersome process of context switching. These modern systems are designed to streamline workflows and boost efficiency across every stage of legal drafting.

Smarter Starting Points

AI-powered tools that surface the most relevant precedents and drafting materials, significantly reduce the time spent searching for the right starting point. An initial draft is quickly generated by AI, enabling focus on refinement rather than starting from scratch.

Real-Time Clause Analysis

Advanced systems offer alternative clause language that aligns with firm language, and all within the drafting interface. This real-time analysis ensures that every document reflects up-to-date internal practices without needing manual cross-referencing.

End-to-End Document Review

Real-time review of documents for outdated terms, ambiguous phrasing, or potential compliance gaps ensures issues are detected early, helping maintain accuracy and consistency, improve collaboration, and speed up delivery to clients. And because drafting, reviewing, finalising, and sharing all occur within the same platform, lawyers can complete and deliver client-ready documents without ever leaving the tool.

Integrated Drafting Workflows

Modern drafting platforms integrate drafting, proofreading, clause libraries, and legal research within a single, unified system. By consolidating these tasks into one ecosystem, lawyers can avoid the inefficiencies of juggling multiple applications, thereby streamlining their workflow.

Citation Review and Proofreading

Additional AI-driven features, such as automated citation review and intelligent proofreading, further enhance document quality. With these tools working in the background, lawyers can ensure every draft is meticulous and ready for client strategy discussions.

The benefits of AI-powered legal drafting tools are clear, and it is becoming more evident that AI Drafting isn’t replacing lawyers; instead, it is just removing the drudge work so they can practise law at a higher level and ultimately provide their customers a better experience.

Future of Legal Drafting: How AI is Transforming Legal Work

What to look for in AI Legal Drafting Tools

With the rise of generative AI, legal drafting tools are multiplying quickly. But not every solution addresses the core challenges lawyers face, such as context switching between tasks and platforms. The most effective ones minimise disruption by unifying workflows and integrating seamlessly with existing firm systems.

Centralised Platform for Legal Tasks

Accessibility in Microsoft Word is crucial, and with the explosion of legal drafting solutions in recent years, the most effective tools are those that integrate directly where lawyers already work. By minimising or eliminating the need to jump between platforms, these tools reduce friction and preserve focus, while also allowing lawyers to highlight, save, tag, and share important content and clauses, with access to the most up-to-date legal content and trusted firm resources.

Enhanced Collaboration

The best drafting tools enhance collaboration by providing built-in features such as commenting, clause-sharing, and joint editing, which reduce reliance on external communication tools and help maintain workflow continuity. This kind of integrated collaboration not only keeps work moving smoothly but also delivers measurable results: according to a study by McKinsey, improved collaboration can increase productivity by up to 25%, giving law firms more time to focus on client work and strategic planning.

Integration with Your DMS

Document management systems (DMS) remain central to law firm operations, offering a structured platform for organising, accessing, and sharing documents internally. The most effective drafting tools integrate seamlessly with these systems, reducing or eliminating the need for context switching and enabling lawyers to consolidate drafting, research, and citation management within a single workflow. This tight integration helps lawyers maintain focus and dedicate more time to higher-value legal work without distraction.

Choosing the right AI-powered drafting tool is not about chasing the latest technology but about selecting a solution that fits seamlessly into the way lawyers already work. By combining centralised drafting, stronger collaboration, and integration with existing systems, firms can overcome the hidden costs of context switching and unlock more time for strategic, client-focused work.

Why It Matters Now

As client expectations evolve and legal work becomes more complex, firms can no longer afford inefficiencies in their drafting processes.

The legal industry is built on precision, consistency, and trust, and by embracing AI-enhanced drafting solutions, firms can finally realign their tools with the way lawyers work: focused, informed, and uninterrupted.

Most importantly, modern platforms now allow lawyers to draft, review, finalise, and deliver client-ready documents all within a single tool. This end-to-end approach eliminates wasted time, reduces errors, and ensures every interaction with clients is built on clarity, speed, and confidence.

Ready to eliminate inefficiencies in your drafting workflow? See how Lexis® Create+ can transform your team’s performance, without disrupting your established processes.