Ari Kaplan is a legal industry analyst who conducts research, advisory work, and writing on law firm operations, including client relationships, billing, legal-technology adoption, and lateral movement. His return-on-investment methodology emphasizes qualitative interviews with named operators rather than survey-based aggregate metrics.
Research approach
Kaplan's ROI methodology relies on qualitative interviews with named operators rather than survey-based aggregate metrics. In the March 2026 Legora study, he reported that most firms could cite concrete examples of saved time but lacked formal dashboards correlating AI usage to billing outcomes, characterizing ROI measurement in legal AI as immature.
The Legora ROI Report (March 2026)
In March 2026, Kaplan partnered with Legora to conduct a customer-side ROI study of legal AI deployments based on three months of interviews across 31 customer firms (AmLaw, Magic Circle, and top international practices), spanning 14 countries. The resulting report (The Legora ROI Report: Measuring the Impact of AI on Law Firms, Mar 30, 2026) reported topline figures of 4.3 non-billable hours per week saved per lawyer, framed as potential additional billing of $6.9M per 100 lawyers; 94% of firms reporting faster client response; 74% reporting expanded capacity; 71% saying Legora identifies issues they would have missed; and 65% saying Legora boosts the performance of high-performing professionals.
The report argues that the largest ROI lever is recovered non-billable hours converted to billable work rather than headcount reduction, and identifies mid-level associates as the primary beneficiaries. On quality, it cites the 71% who say Legora identifies missed issues and 26% who report redoing less work due to errors. On pricing, it reports that 39% of firms say Legora has made it easier to deliver fixed-fee or capped-fee work and 42% say Legora has helped win new work directly or indirectly.
The report includes qualitative case studies, among them a Tabular Review applied to acquisitions involving 9,000 contracts, a 4,500 trade-slip review, and the preparation of 90 global business plans.
Methodology caveats
The report is vendor-commissioned: Legora paid for the study. All 31 firms are existing Legora customers willing to be interviewed by name, which the study notes skews the sample toward satisfied users. On this basis the topline figures, such as $6.9M per 100 lawyers, are best read as upper-bound estimates of legal-AI ROI rather than population means, while the qualitative case studies remain concrete and directionally useful.
Relationships
- related: Legora (commissioned the report)
- related: Legal Services — AI Deployment, Harvey (a US legal-AI competitor)
- supports: Professional Services AI Adoption (general concept)