Forrester Study Documents How In-House Legal Teams Achieved 284% ROI By Adoption of Lexis+ AI Platform

A recent commissioned study by one of the world’s leading independent business research and advisory firms has provided significant findings of the measurable impact that a legal AI platform can have on the internal productivity and operational efficiency of in-house legal departments.

Forrester Consulting’s June 2025 study, The Total Economic Impact™️ of Lexis+ AI® for Corporate Legal Departments, a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of LexisNexis, May 2025, set out to evaluate the potential economic impact of the Lexis+ AI workflow solution on in-house legal teams. The study found that legal teams deploying Lexis+ AI achieved a 284% return on investment (ROI) over three years, with the solution paying for itself in less than six months, and generated $1.2 million in benefits and cost savings across the first three years of adoption.

Study Methodology and Scope

Forrester constructed its study by aggregating the experiences of corporate legal department decision-makers into a single composite organization: a global enterprise based in North America with $10 billion in annual revenue and a corporate legal staff consisting of 70 attorneys and 10 paralegals. This composite model provided a realistic benchmark for mid-to-large corporate legal departments evaluating legal AI platforms for adoption.

Forrester’s researchers then examined how the Lexis+ AI® workflow solution impacts in-house legal department operations, productivity and cost management by engaging directly with existing Lexis+ AI corporate customers. They collected data and real-world implementation experiences in order to quantify measurable business outcomes.

Financial Benefits

The study identified two major categories of quantified benefits that corporate legal departments can expect from Lexis+ AI implementation:

1. Outside Counsel Cost Reductions

The most significant financial impact comes from reduced reliance on external legal services. The study found up to 13% reduction in outside counsel work, generating more than $600,000 in cost savings over the three-year period. This reduction stems from in-house teams' enhanced ability to handle more complex legal work independently, supported by AI-powered research and drafting capabilities.

Additionally, legal departments experienced 25% fewer lawyer hours needed to address legal inquiries that impact the business, saving nearly $575,000. This efficiency gain allows attorneys to handle a higher volume of matters without proportional increases in time investment, effectively expanding departmental capacity.

2. Internal Productivity and Operational Efficiency

Beyond external cost savings, the study documented significant internal productivity improvements. Paralegals experienced 50% time savings on administrative tasks annually, unlocking more than $50,000 in value and freeing time for higher-value work. This efficiency gain enables legal support staff to focus on more strategic activities rather than routine administrative functions.

Perhaps most importantly for departmental scalability, the study found a 5% increase in the volume of matters handled internally in Year 1, without adding more hours. This capacity expansion without corresponding resource increases represents a fundamental improvement in departmental productivity. The resulting impact to legal department budget savings is nearly 2%, equating to almost $642,500 annual savings in Year 3, demonstrating how AI adoption can create compounding value over time.

Strategic and Qualitative Benefits

While the quantified financial benefits provide a strong business case, the study also identified several strategic advantages that, while harder to measure, contribute significantly to long-term departmental success.

• Enhanced Work Quality and Speed: The study found that Lexis+ AI helps legal departments rapidly deliver the higher-quality legal work. This improvement stems from AI-powered research capabilities that provide expansive and thorough legal analysis more quickly than traditional research methods.
• Improved Employee Experience: In-house legal professionals benefit from an advanced AI workflow solution grounded in high-quality legal content for trusted AI results. This technology enhancement can improve job satisfaction and retention by reducing time spent on routine tasks and enabling focus on more intellectually engaging work.
• Enterprise AI Leadership: Lexis+ AI accelerates organization-wide AI adoption goals with data privacy, security encryption and compliance at the forefront. Legal departments implementing AI solutions position themselves as innovation leaders within their organizations while maintaining the security and compliance standards essential to legal work.

The study’s findings suggest that successful AI implementation requires strategic thinking about choosing the right legal AI platform that will integrate smoothly into the department’s workflow. The key to realizing these benefits lies in enabling in-house teams to efficiently and accurately handle more legal work themselvesꟷwith confidence in enterprise-grade security. This allows in-house counsel to strategically optimize their outside counsel spend for critical work and focus internal resources on higher-value work.

AI-Powered Legal Tools for In-House Teams

The Forrester study shows that legal AI represents far more than operational efficiency; it is a strategic investment in competitive positioning, talent retention and client service excellence.

LexisNexis® offers AI-powered legal tools for corporate legal teams, including legal research, drafting and summarization tools that deliver on the potential of generative AI technology. The Lexis+ AI service delivers answers to your in-house legal team that are grounded in the world’s largest repository of accurate and exclusive legal content from LexisNexis, with industry-leading data security and attention to privacy.

All of these resources are accessible to in-house legal teams from Lexis+® General Counsel Suite. Lexis+ GC Suite provides in-house counsel with a vast collection of legal resources, breaking business and legal news, and Practical Guidance content.

​Click here for more information about Lexis+ GC Suite or to register for a free 7-day trial.

Explore the full Forrester TEI study to learn how Lexis+ AI is transforming corporate legal departments: lexisnexis.com/corporate-ai-roi