The Best of Both Worlds: Rules and AI in Legal

For in-house legal teams, the challenge is balance. Processes must be reliable and defensible to protect the business, but the business itself moves quickly and rarely waits. Legal has to be both structured enough to ensure compliance and adaptable enough to keep up with change.

Legal technology has often addressed only one side of this balance. Rules-based systems deliver structure but can lock teams into rigid workflows. Artificial intelligence offers flexibility and scale, but without proper guardrails it can feel unpredictable.

At Coheso, we bring these two approaches together. Structured where it matters, adaptive where it counts. The result is legal operations that keep pace with business while staying grounded in certainty. 

The Role of Rules-Based Systems

Rules sit at the core of every legal operation. They provide clarity and predictability by ensuring that critical requirements such as regulations, internal policies and approval thresholds are followed the same way every time. This reliability is what makes rules so valuable for legal teams working to protect the business.

When translated into technology, rules-based logic produces deterministic outcomes that leave little room for ambiguity. For example:

• A vendor contract automatically routes to Procurement Legal

• Any spend above $100,000 requires executive approval

• Data connected to the EU triggers retention policies

This level of certainty builds trust across the organization. Business stakeholders gain confidence that essential guardrails are always in place. Legal teams gain peace of mind knowing the processes they designed will withstand both internal scrutiny and external review.

Yet rules can only go so far. They thrive in situations where the answer is clear and consistent. But much of legal work does not fall into that category. Every day, teams encounter exceptions, gray areas, and evolving circumstances that rigid rules alone cannot resolve.

The Role of AI

AI gives legal teams an edge in the gray areas where rules stop. Instead of rigid answers, it looks for patterns, weighs context, and surfaces the most likely solutions. The result is faster responses, sharper insights, and a department that feels less like a bottleneck and more like a business partner.

Picture this in action:

• A vague email like “Can you take a look at this?” lands in your inbox. AI recognizes it as an NDA request and routes it instantly

• A 40-page services agreement comes through. AI highlights the five risk points an executive actually needs to see

• A business user asks a question. AI responds with an answer backed by the right policy

AI is not about replacing lawyers. It is about giving them leverage. By handling the repetitive and the complex at scale, AI helps legal teams respond faster, support the business more effectively and focus on the work that requires true judgment.

Why Both Are Necessary

Legal work rarely fits neatly into one box. Some tasks are straightforward, others are nuanced, and many fall somewhere in the middle.

Take a marketing review request:

• Rules make sure the basics are covered: the campaign name, jurisdiction, and spend are filled in, and the request goes to the right reviewer

• AI looks at the draft copy, flags risky terms, and checks it against past approved campaigns

• The lawyer reviews the inputs and makes the final decision

The same balance plays out in contract reviews, compliance checks, and policy questions. Rules provide structure, AI adds flexibility. Together they give legal teams the ability to deliver reliable outcomes at the speed business demands.

A Constructive View of AI in Legal

AI in legal is often seen through the lens of risk: hallucinations, bias, unpredictability. While those are valid concerns, they don’t tell the whole story.

AI delivers the most value when it is given context and direction. Paired with rules and guided by human oversight, its flexibility turns into dependable outcomes.

That’s why it helps to see AI not as a replacement or a threat, but as a partner. One that works alongside established legal processes to extend their reach.

With this balance, legal teams gain the best of both worlds — the speed and scale of AI, combined with the trust and reliability that define their role.

The Balance That Keeps Work Moving

Coheso’s platform is one example of striking the right balance in legal work. Some requests are simple, others are complex, and many fall somewhere in between. The platform makes it possible to manage all of them by combining structure and flexibility so work moves forward instead of getting stuck in back-and-forth.

Requests can come from a smart form, Outlook or Gmail, Teams or Slack, or an AI-assisted conversation. Wherever they start, the platform makes sure they are captured and ready for action:

• Rules keep things structured by capturing the details that matter, routing requests to the right place, enforcing compliance.

• AI enriches the process by interpreting vague requests, creating a first-pass draft response, highlighting risks or relevant precedents.

• Legal stays in the loop by reviewing the work, approving outcomes, and maintaining oversight.

This approach respects the dual nature of legal work, making routine tasks easier to manage and leaving more room for strategic, high-value work.

The Benefits of a Balanced Approach

1. Trust and Reliability

Guardrails stay in place. Rules handle the non-negotiables consistently, while AI works with context and oversight. Together, they build confidence that nothing critical is missed and processes remain defensible.

2. Efficiency at Scale

Routine requests move faster with automated routing and checks. AI handles first drafts and issue-spotting, freeing lawyers to focus on the matters that require their judgment.

3. Ease of Adoption

Business users keep working in the tools they already know. Legal receives structured data, without adding friction to the process.

4. Transparency and Insight

Rules standardize how data is captured. AI identifies patterns and trends that help inform strategy and guide better decisions.

A New Paradigm for Legal Work

The role of the legal department is evolving. It is no longer just the team that steps in when something goes wrong or when a contract needs review. Legal is now expected to act as a proactive partner to the business. To meet these expectations, it needs both certainty and flexibility.

Rules alone can’t provide the adaptability required in today’s fast-changing business environment. AI alone can’t deliver the assurance and accountability that legal demands. Together, they create a system that is both structured and dynamic.

This shift moves legal beyond the perception of being a bottleneck and positions it as a trusted partner to the business. It gives the department the tools to be faster, more reliable, and more strategic, while never losing sight of the trust it is built on.

Embracing the Best of Both Worlds

The future of legal isn’t about choosing between tradition and innovation. It’s about building a function that is consistent enough to be trusted and flexible enough to keep pace with the business. With rules and AI working together, legal can move beyond being a checkpoint to becoming an enabler of growth. 

That balance represents the best of both worlds.