A report from the Thomson Reuters Institute uncovered a curious paradox: Fully 82% of legal professionals believe that generative AI (GenAI) can be used in legal work. However, only 51% believed that it should be used in legal work.
Why the difference? Many legal professionals see the potential of GenAI to help them be more efficient and productive. But they aren’t sure if they can trust the available tools to deliver accurate legal research.
How can the legal researchers on your team take advantage of the efficiencies GenAI promises, while also protecting accuracy? After all, it isn’t very productive to have to redo work if an unproven technology steers you wrong.
The answer may already be available to the legal researchers in your legal department. Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel offers relevant answers to your legal questions delivered quickly and with links to trusted Westlaw authority. Using it can increase researchers’ productivity and create opportunities to improve spend management and deliver better outcomes to the business.
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| Time savings in legal research and document review |
| Improved accuracy and comprehensiveness of research results |
| Cost-effectiveness and resource optimization |
| Enhanced ability to handle complex legal issues quickly |
| Benefits beyond legal research |
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Time savings in legal research and document review
Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel represents the biggest change in legal research since the switch from books to online. It enables legal professionals to jumpstart their research and deliver value to the business faster.
Legal researchers are used to running searches that deliver a long list of cases, statutes, regulations, secondary sources, and court documents. They spend a lot of time going through the documents one at a time to find the relevant data to craft an answer to complicated questions like “Does a False Claims Act claim for retaliation include retaliation by the employer for the employee’s conduct after termination?” This research and analysis can take hours.
Improved accuracy and comprehensiveness of research results
With AI-Assisted Research, legal professionals can make better-informed decisions and complete the remainder of their research more efficiently.
More conversational search prompts: Rather than trying to think like a computer, researchers craft their queries like they were talking to a colleague.
Results delivered with context: Sophisticated GenAI searches Westlaw’s trusted database and returns an overview with detailed insights from your top results.
Supporting material for you to review: Along with an answer to the question, the researcher gets language from the supporting authority and a list of documents the system used to generate the response. With that information, you can validate the response to ensure you agree with it.
Cost-effectiveness and resource optimization
Corporate legal teams want to spend time lawyering – that is, applying their knowledge and wisdom to help the business. Reading through dozens of cases to find the right answer is often not their favorite part of their job.
What’s more, the time you spend reviewing case law often takes away from time you could spend advising business partners or exploring new areas of law. Using a productivity tool like Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel frees you up to deliver excellent legal work on even more matters. You can spend your time meeting with business partners, discussing legal strategy, and crafting documents, rather than trying to find the documents you need to get started. That in turn allows the legal department to deliver more value to the business.
Researchers can use this feature confidently, knowing it is built on more than 150 years of expertise. Further, user data is kept secure and confidential within Westlaw. Customer information is not used to train the model, nor is it stored or in any way owned by a third party.
Enhanced ability to handle complex legal issues quickly
Traditionally, when an urgent complex matter arrives in the legal department you have two options: Drop everything else and spend hours trying to understand it or ship it to an outside law firm. Less urgent matters might not require you to drop everything, but they do cost you in terms of time or law firm spend.
Having access to Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel creates a third option. You can spend a small amount of time assessing the matter with answers tailored to your specific situation. You’ll establish a baseline understanding of the matter and what it will take to handle it. You can use the insights from Westlaw Precision to help your business partners better understand their risks and opportunities. You’ll have the information you need to decide whether and how to proceed. You’ll also be able to make an informed decision about whether to give the matter to outside counsel or handle it internally.
If you do decide to handle it internally, you’ll be able to use Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel to deepen your understanding of the legal issues and streamline your efforts. Taking on a complex or new type of matter won’t be as disruptive to your routine with the right tools to help you do the work.
Benefits beyond legal research
Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel helps in-house attorneys get a faster start to their research. People who have tried it have found it helps them get to trusted answers faster and that it boosts their productivity. Over time, that added productivity can lead to higher-quality legal work product, better spend management, and better outcomes for the business.
Learn how you can get a jump start on your research with faster answers to legal questions thanks to AI-Assisted Research, now available on Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel. Request your free trial of Westlaw Precision today.
