Since 2025, the artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek has made significant strides across various industries, notably within legal services. Its advanced AI integration, including government and law firm deployments, has enhanced efficiency and precision.
Rise of DeepSeek and Industry Integration
Headquartered in Hangzhou, the AI startup DeepSeek has garnered widespread attention since early 2025 for its robust AI products and expansive application potential, prompting active adoption across various sectors. From Baidu Search to WeChat and Huawei Cloud, numerous tech giants have begun integrating their offerings with DeepSeek’s functionalities. This integration extends to governmental services as well: In February, the Fengtai District Government Service and Data Management Bureau of Beijing completed the on-site deployment of the DeepSeek large language model environment on the government cloud infrastructure. The district became the first to apply the technology to government services, launching the “Feng Xiaozheng” digital assistant, accelerating the intelligent transformation of public services.
In the realm of legal services, DeepSeek’s impact is increasingly evident. Law firms and legal tech companies are keenly aware of this trend and are actively exploring the possibilities of deep integration between DeepSeek and the legal industry. The Hangzhou-based AI firm has commenced the gradual deployment of specialized legal solutions, designed to address the dual demands of efficiency and precision within the legal sector.
At the judicial level, courts and procuratorates in various regions and jurisdictions have initiated DeepSeek training programs and even deployments, aimed at leveraging AI tools to enhance judicial efficiency, further advancing the development of smart justice. In March, China’s judicial convenience platform successfully integrated DeepSeek to offer online legal consultation services.
Diverse Approaches
Kevin Wang, COO of legal tech firm L-Expert, believes that DeepSeek’s open-source availability and commercialization enable it to achieve functionality comparable to top-tier large language models at a significantly reduced cost, attracting widespread adoption among Chinese tech companies. Numerous law firms and legal tech vendors have already begun integrating DeepSeek to enhance comprehensive legal database searches, document generation, and contract review functionalities.
“Chinese law firms have shown great enthusiasm for DeepSeek applications,” Wang observed. “Many lawyers are actively experimenting and researching to find products and implementation strategies that truly boost their productivity.” At the firm level, “managing partners prioritize AI-supported products when selecting new systems. Many firms are collaborating with us to develop and test related applications,” Wang added.
Practically, L-Expert has completed the local deployment of the AI large language model and is leveraging DeepSeek to enhance its product functionalities, including system AI assistants, cross-database AI document searches with automatic organization, and automated document generation and management.
In early March, Yingke Law Firm also announced a full integration with DeepSeek, becoming one of the first Chinese law firms to formally link DeepSeek with legal services. Yingke has reportedly implemented a complete version of the DeepSeek-R1 reasoning model, aiming to introduce intelligent solutions for the legal sector.
“To optimize DeepSeek-R1 for legal applications, Yingke established a dedicated team spanning various business areas to analyze our extensive industry experience,” the firm told the Asia Legal Business magazine. “Leveraging DeepSeek-R1’s technology, we further enhanced our proprietary legal data resources, including a substantial lawyer profile, case library, regulatory database, and contract template, creating a comprehensive legal knowledge framework. Through specialized training in legal terminology, principles, and reasoning, DeepSeek-R1 can more accurately understand and apply legal knowledge, providing robust support for Yingke’s legal services.”
Following the integration with the full version of DeepSeek-R1, Yingke plans to deploy the technology in seven key work scenarios to assist with corresponding legal tasks.
First, Yingke aims to construct a more multi-dimensional legal knowledge system through DeepSeek-R1. Previously scattered legal resources will be integrated into a consolidated database, enabling lawyers to access and utilize professional resources more effectively and improving knowledge management.
Second, for regulatory research, Yingke will utilize DeepSeek-R1 to implement real-time updates and precise maintenance of its regulatory database, thereby ensuring authority and accuracy when referencing legal provisions.
Notably, Yingke’s previously launched “Ying Fa Bao AI Legal Space Station” will undergo a comprehensive upgrade with DeepSeek-R1’s reasoning capabilities and knowledge distillation technology. The enhanced system will more accurately understand users’ legal requirements, addressing general, routine, and knowledge-based legal consultations, while significantly reducing resource consumption and operational costs.
For client communication, DeepSeek-R1 will assist in quickly organizing client inquiries, extracting keywords, and supplementing relevant information, thereby enabling intelligent matching based on case type, geographic considerations, and lawyer expertise, enhancing client satisfaction while reducing communication costs.
Furthermore, Yingke will leverage AI technology for precise categorization and efficient retrieval of historical cases, providing lawyers with abundant reference materials to quickly understand the judgments and judicial inclinations of similar cases, offering data-driven support for the formulation of litigation strategies.
In terms of contract services, the deployment of DeepSeek-R1 will enhance efficiency and quality through intelligent generation and review functions, including risk identification, clause generation, and version comparison capabilities, potentially significantly boosting the firm’s non-litigation service capabilities.
Finally, Yingke will utilize AI technology to implement intelligent management of multi-dimensional information on lawyers’ professional backgrounds, specializations, and successful cases, optimizing internal management and business allocation processes while facilitating collaboration among lawyers.
Challenges of Hallucinations
Similar to many general-purpose large language models, the deeper application of DeepSeek in the legal field raises a series of challenges. Issues such as data security, intellectual property protection, algorithmic bias, and legal responsibility definitions are urgently needed to be addressed, and also pose new requirements for the standardized operation of the entire legal services market.
A typical scenario is that lawyers, when using DeepSeek to generate content, discover fabricated data and even non-existent legal provisions. This raises the question: Can legal professionals eliminate such issues by independently providing training data to DeepSeek to create reliable vertical domain-specific models?
Wang pointed out that this phenomenon is called hallucination, which occurs when the model generates information that appears plausible but is actually inaccurate or non-existent.
“The reason this happens is that models learn from massive datasets during training, but their generation mechanisms are based on probabilistic prediction rather than factual retrieval. Eliminating ‘hallucinations’ by providing data is unlikely, and making AI rely on designated databases to answer questions is theoretically feasible but operationally extremely difficult at this stage,” he said.
The fundamental problem lies in the training methods and architecture of large language models. Wang explained, “The responses generated by large models like DeepSeek are reconstructed from their pre-trained knowledge bases and user-provided contextual information through complex deep learning architectures like Transformers. Therefore, even if specific data is provided, they can only partially improve accuracy and cannot completely prevent the influence of their original knowledge base. Furthermore, while it is technically possible to deeply modify the core architecture of the model, the investment costs—including funding, data resources, and engineering development—are very high, and the implementation challenges are significant.”
Yingke believes that ensuring the accuracy of legal large language models is a complex process that requires starting from algorithm modeling, risk assessment, and data monitoring, and is supported by authoritative legal databases and a large amount of professional legal academic literature.
“Yingke attaches great importance to the hallucination problem of DeepSeek in serious occasions, which must be addressed,” the firm added. “We ensure data quality by cleaning our proprietary data to eliminate errors and noise, while accurately annotating and classifying data—for example, marking legal provisions with the scope of application and marking cases with case types, dispute focuses, and applicable legal provisions—to facilitate model learning and understanding. In addition, we incorporate logical rules of the legal field into DeepSeek, thereby enabling rule-based reasoning and judgment to improve the model’s accuracy and logical coherence when handling legal issues.”
DeepSeek’s emergence signifies a pivotal shift in the legal landscape, prompting law firms to reassess their operational strategies and technological infrastructure. The integration of AI tools like DeepSeek-R1 offers a spectrum of benefits, ranging from enhanced knowledge management and regulatory research to streamlined client communication and contract services. However, the challenges presented by AI hallucinations necessitate a cautious and meticulous approach, emphasizing data quality, algorithmic refinement, and continuous monitoring.
The diverse strategies adopted by firms like L-Expert and Yingke Law Firm underscore the multifaceted nature of AI integration in legal practices. While L-Expert focuses on leveraging DeepSeek’s open-source capabilities to enhance its existing legal tech solutions, Yingke is embarking on a more comprehensive deployment, integrating DeepSeek-R1 across various core functions. Both approaches reflect a common goal: to augment human expertise with AI-driven insights, ultimately delivering superior legal services.
Moreover, the legal community’s engagement with DeepSeek extends beyond mere adoption; it encompasses a proactive effort to mold AI tools to meet the specific demands of the profession. Yingke’s specialized training of DeepSeek-R1 in legal terminology, principles, and reasoning exemplifies this commitment. By tailoring AI models to the intricacies of legal knowledge, firms aim to mitigate the risk of inaccuracies and ensure the reliability of AI-generated content.
Despite the potential benefits, anxiety persists within the legal profession regarding the implications of AI adoption. Concerns about data security, intellectual property protection, and algorithmic bias are legitimate and require careful consideration. Establishing clear ethical guidelines and regulatory frameworks is crucial to fostering trust and ensuring the responsible use of AI in legal services.
The challenge of AI hallucinations highlights the need for continuous improvement and refinement of AI models. While eliminating hallucinations entirely may be unattainable, strategies such as data cleansing, accurate annotation, and integration of logical rules can significantly reduce their occurrence. Furthermore, collaboration between AI developers and legal professionals is essential to ensure that AI tools are aligned with the ethical standards and practical requirements of the legal profession.
In conclusion, the DeepSeek era presents both opportunities and challenges for Chinese law firms. By embracing AI tools strategically, addressing ethical concerns proactively, and fostering collaboration between AI developers and legal professionals, law firms can harness the transformative potential of AI while upholding the integrity and quality of legal services. The journey ahead requires a balanced approach, combining technological innovation with human judgment to ensure that AI serves as a valuable asset to the legal profession.