Meet David von Ebers, Senior Specialist Legal Editor with Practical Law
Highlights
- Attorney editors with decades of practice experience continuously refine CoCounsel Legal's capabilities.
- David von Ebers tests fully agentic workflows using real Pennsylvania litigation cases.
- Rigorous holdout tests ensure CoCounsel Legal meets fiduciary-grade AI standards for attorneys.
Hundreds of attorney editors and legal specialists with decades of real-world practice experience are a huge part of what makes CoCounsel Legal different. They are continuously at work to build, test, and refine CoCounsel Legal. This professional expertise, forged in courtrooms and tested through actual legal practice, is integral to making CoCounsel Legal a trusted resource.
David von Ebers embodies this expertise. As a Senior Specialist Legal Editor with Practical Law, he brings nearly three decades of litigation experience to every evaluation of CoCounsel Legal. When von Ebers assesses the processes and outputs, he’s ensuring it works the way attorneys work, a distinction that defines fiduciary-grade AI.
Von Ebers has a wealth of diverse practice experience — from Jenner & Block in Chicago to mid-sized and small firms, and ultimately as a solo practitioner for nearly 15 years. That breadth of experience informs every test he runs, every standard he sets, and every improvement he recommends.
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Testing for real-world professional standards
Expertise that drives innovation
The driving force of CoCounsel Legal
Testing for real-world professional standards
Von Ebers currently works on two strategic initiatives for the next generation of CoCounsel Legal, the first of which is testing fully agentic workflows using real cases
Alongside a team of editors, von Ebers evaluates CoCounsel Legal using a complete Pennsylvania litigation case. Instead of selecting skills or crafting precise prompts, attorneys will be able to simply describe what they need. The system determines the approach, builds a tailored plan, and executes while maintaining professional standards.
“We have weekly meetings where we discuss the process and results, suggest changes, and highlight what works and what doesn’t,” von Ebers explains. “As a result, we’ve seen concrete improvements in the product.” His second project establishes “holdout tests,” rigorous benchmarks that CoCounsel Legal must meet to be deemed trustworthy. This gold-standard benchmarking ensures that CoCounsel is delivering transparent, verifiable outputs that meet the exacting standards legal professionals require.
Expertise that drives innovation
Von Ebers’s work represents one of CoCounsel Legal’s foundational pillars: continuous refinement by domain experts. This human expertise isn’t supplementary. It’s central to what makes CoCounsel Legal deliver on its promise of fiduciary-grade AI.
It’s a sophisticated product, but the end-user’s work carries significant professional responsibility. As we advance CoCounsel Legal’s capabilities, we’re ensuring attorneys understand their role in the process. They remain the decision-maker.
Senior Specialist Legal Editor, Practical Law
This professional oversight is critical to CoCounsel Legal’s shift from prompt-driven AI to a fully agentic infrastructure. While the system is automatically determining what needs to be done and how it’s done, von Ebers and his colleagues are leveraging their legal experience to determine what does and does not meet the quality threshold that has come to define Thomson Reuters.
Von Ebers points to the collaboration between the technology and editorial teams as a major achievement. “I’m most proud of working on a team that provides direct feedback to our technology teams, who are advancing the next generation of CoCounsel Legal on an ambitious timeline. Contributing to that achievement is deeply meaningful.”
The driving force of CoCounsel Legal
The next generation of CoCounsel Legal represents the synthesis of decades of legal experience, rigorous testing, and a fundamental principle: the most advanced AI shouldn’t demand the most advanced users. It should work the way legal professionals think, empowering them to focus on strategic decisions and client outcomes.
That’s what makes CoCounsel Legal different, and what makes domain experts like von Ebers vital to its development. “The mindset I bring to my work on CoCounsel Legal is this: how would a practicing attorney at any level of practice use this in their day-to-day work?” he explains. “How can we make their lives easier?”
The next generation of CoCounsel Legal is scheduled to launch later this year. Learn more about how we’re building the future of legal AI.
