Yesterday I attended a press event hosted by Thomson Reuters where they announced an demoed a  suite  of four GenAI products and initiatives. Only three months after completing the acquisition of Casetext they are launching a suite of tools which are driven by the integration of Casetext and CoCounsel technologies with TRs legacy AI infrastructure.

Standing on the Doorstep of Change I have spent forty years watching legal research evolve, so my focus in this post will be on the Westlaw Precision AI functionality. During yesterday’s demo, I had to remind myself “we are not in Kansas anymore.” My default is to expect the product to be more like the research experience am used to in Westlaw Edge. This reminds me of the early days of Westlaw – it started out being a system which could only search the West headnotes and the key number system. It delivered efficiencies over print research but didn’t at all suggest the completely transformed and unimaginable changes that would come. No one was thinking about legal analytics in 1980, but now they are an essential part of legal strategy and legal research. I feel that we are in that same place with AI Assisted Research on Westlaw Precision, It offers a foundational move toward a new way of performing research and integrating research into workflow. I need to remind myself that there is a future of legal research I can’t yet imagine.

The new products include:

• AI-Assisted Research on Westlaw Precision – Better, faster answers to complex research questions drawn from the industry’s most comprehensive collection of editorially enhanced content.

 • A new GenAI assistant connects all Thomson Reuters generative AI products, building on innovation from Casetext

• Thomson Reuters Generative AI Platform – A common development platform to design, build, and deploy GenAI skills with unparalleled speed • New GenAI capabilities for Practical Law – Customers to benefit from AI chat-type interface

• CoCounsel Core – Announcing the commercial offering of CoCounsel skills as part of the Thomson Reuters portfolio

“Thomson Reuters is redefining the way legal work is done by delivering a generative AI-based toolkit to enable attorneys to quickly gather deeper insights and deliver a better work product. AI-Assisted Research on Westlaw Precision and CoCounsel Core provide the most comprehensive set of generative AI skills that attorneys can use across their research and workflow,” said David Wong, chief product officer.

AI Assisted Research on Westlaw Precision is now available to Precision customers in the United States. It is described as offering a “best of” approach which combines the technology from both Casetext and the Thomson Reuters Generative AI Platforms. .AI-Assisted Research allows customers to ask complex legal research questions in natural language and  receive synthesized answers, with links to supporting authority from Westlaw content and links to further examine that authority. During a pre-launch event Mike Dahn, Head of Westlaw Product  pointed out that although AI is an important component of the new product, the technology is rooted in and enhanced by “more than 150 years of Thomson Reuters classification, analysis, and editorial expertise contributed by subject matter experts and attorney editors”.

A few observations:

Continue Reading Thomson Reuters Launches Generative AI-Powered Solutions  for Research and Workflow – Previews Generative AI Strategy

Earlier this year I wrote a post about Pre/Dicta a new legal analytics product which “breaks all the rules” followed in the legal analytics market. Today Pre/Dicta announced the availability of predictions for new motion types, a new dashboard and additional interactive features. Unlike other analytics products which focuses on “the law.” Pre/Dicta focuses on profiling judges personal characteristics in order to predict how they will rule on a motion based on the characteristics of the cause of action, the parties and the attorney. It runs the predictions based on one piece of data – the Docket number! It doesn’t read the complaint, and it ignored the facts and defenses.

Founder Dan Rabinowitz built a methodology and an algorithm that is correct 85% of the time. Pre/Dicta has collected, enriched and analyzed more than 35 million docket entries, over 3.5 million cases, and 5.5 million parties and firms. This enables Pre/Dicta to generate a unique fingerprint or ‘DNA’ for each case and predicts judicial decisions. The availability of data-centric forecasts for the entire litigation timeline, from filing to trial, provides attorneys and their clients with a strategic edge and facilitates a more highly informed litigation strategy.

Continue Reading Pre/Dicta Adds 3 New Motion Outcome Predictions and “Doppelganger” AI Capability

Less than a month ago LexisNexis announced the launch of Lexis+ AI which launched with Conversational search, document drafting, summarization and analysis features. Today they are announcing the availability of two new features designed to speed up workflow and deliver insights from within two very different contexts: CourtLink and Microsoft Word.

Lexis Snapshot
The new Lexis Snapshot will summarize complaints filed in U.S. Federal District Court cases. It uses Generative AI to identify the nature of suit, summarize the complaint, identify parties, harms, and remedies in the complaint. CourtLink subscribers can add Snapshot to their subscription. There are also plans to expand the service to additional product and documents within the “Lexis ecosystem.”

All CourtLink Customer can preview the Snapshot service for free though the end of 2023.
At launch, the Lexis Snapshot service can be added to CourtLink. They also plan to expand the
service to additional products and document types “within the LexisNexis generative AI-enabled legal product ecosystem in future releases.”

Continue Reading Lexis+AI Suite Of Tools Expanded with Lexis Snapshot and Lexis Create

The 2023 Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory Future Ready Lawyer Survey Report includes insights from 700 legal professionals across the U.S. and nine European countries – namely Germany, the Netherlands, UK, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, and Hungary. The survey shows noteworthy differences between the countries surveyed.

The report documents the broad awareness of Generative AI’s promise and an expectation of a speedy adoption of Gen AI solutions over the next twelve months. The responders don’t seem to recognize the “headwinds” which are likely to slow both adoption and impact. Top of mind is the ongoing economic uncertainty combined with firms’ need to address the ethical, IP, security and privacy issues associated with using GenAI in legal practice.

Although the key trends below include many issues which have been around for decades, I can’t help but wonder how many of these challenges will be improved or resolved was GenAI matures and becomes pervasive across the business and practice of law.

Key trends expected to have a significant impact on legal in the next three years:

  • Growing complexity of compliance areas
  • Increasing importance of legal technology
  • Ability to recruit and retain talent
  • Increased demand for specialization and a decline in generalist work
  • Law departments moving more work in-house (insourcing)
  • Greater price competition/new and alternative fee structures/cost-containment pressures
  • Growing impact of generative AI/ChatGPT
  • Coping with increased volume and complexity of information
  • Meeting changing client/company leadership expectations
  • Emphasis on improved efficiency/ productivity
  • Growth of alternative legal service providers (ALSPs), including expansion of Big Four into legal services

I thought the two most interesting sections of the report dealt with Generative AI and ESG.

Continue Reading Wolters Kluwer Releases 2023 Future Ready Lawyer Report

(Chicago, IL) November 2, 2023 – The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) has officially launched its new Sponsor Directory, a white-labelled version with enhancements of the Legaltech Hub (LTH) directory.

Earlier this year, ILTA announced its partnership with Legaltech Hub (LTH) and the intention to white-label a version of the LTH directory to replace ILTA’s Sponsor Directory. The new Sponsor Directory, which went live in a soft launch a week ago, provides ILTA members with the ability to browse easily across all ILTA sponsors and delivers the most comprehensive mapping of legal technology solutions in the industry.

The new Sponsor Directory, powered by LTH, features the ability to search for solutions and solution providers by keyword or name, filter results by category of legal tech solution and use case (such as practice management, document management, contract review), by practice area, applicable jurisdictions, the language in which the technology operates, deployment options, as well as by attributes (for example, if there is a Word plug-in involved or advanced LLM technology is leveraged).

ILTA sponsors are clearly identified and promoted, and the directory is maintained along with market changes, providing a value-added service to ILTA members.

“From the start, we’ve been about connecting people in the legal industry with tech solutions to help the business and practice of law,” says Nikki Shaver, CEO of LTH. “ILTA and LTH share similar values about the industry, and this is the first part of a partnership that will provide significant benefits to ILTA members and sponsors as well as to LTH partners and subscribers.”

ILTA President Tony McKenna is also excited about the partnership: “As witnessed at ILTACon 2023, there is a growing need for legal-specific technology that offers numerous benefits. ILTA partnering with LTH provides members with a unique means of keeping informed of potential solutions to our firm’s problems and ideas.”

The ILTA Sponsor Directory can now be accessed on the ILTA site.

ABOUT LTH

Legaltech Hub is dedicated to educating buyers about legal technology and connecting vendors and service providers to relevant buyers. The LTH directory combines the most comprehensive global directory of legal technology with a powerful keyword search. LTH Premium is a subscription product providing tools and resources for innovation, IT, and legal operations teams, including procurement frameworks to improve the way that buyers evaluate, procure, implement, and drive the adoption of legal technology.

ABOUT ILTA 

The International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) serves the professional needs of more than 25,000 international legal technology professionals and their organizations. Since its founding in 1980, the association’s focus is to achieve results for our membership and the legal technology profession at large. Much of the value we provide as an association occurs through the coordinated efforts with our global volunteer membership teams. 

Press Contact

Dawn Hudgins

dhudgins@iltanet.org

Once Again We Must Ask –What business are we in?

Over the years when speaking to library and knowledge management audiences, I have often invoked the importance of knowing what business we are in.

,I became a librarian because “I loved books.” Yet on the day when I started my first law library job, a hulking piece of equipment was rolled through the door of the Pace University Law  Library. This was an omen, like a comet across the night sky, my career path would pivot in unforeseeable directions. The Lexis DeLuxe research terminal was the size of a washing machine, and it connected to Mead Data Central computers in Ohio via a dial-up modem. This “state of the art” equipment provided access to Ohio statutes and cases. Within 10 years the Lexis and Westlaw WALT terminals would shrink, the World Wide Web would be born and the stacks of books would be compressed into bits of data accessible on everyone’s desktop.

I love the “Black & Decker marketing strategy that recognized that their customers “don’t want a drill they want a half-inch hole in a board.” And librarians who thought lawyers and law firm administrators only needed books became flotsam in a surging tide of technology. Librarians and knowledge managers need to be aligned with what lawyers really need and  that they have the unique expertise to deliver: information that gives them a competitive edge, new clients, happy clients, predictive and  actionable insights , efficient workflow, and tools that make their lives easier. (Read the full post at Legal Tech Hub)

Seizing the Technology of the Day

Continue Reading AI and the Future of Law Libraries : Opportunity or Armageddon


Fireside Chat: Thinking the Unthinkable – How Will Legal Publishing Thrive, Decline or Transform in a Generative AI Era?

  • Look into the crystal ball: See what industry trends are likely to disrupt legal publishing in the next 5 years and their implications for law firms and law librarians 
  • Discuss how Generative AI is likely to transform legal research and potential impact on cost recovery  
  • Hear an expert’s view on whether the Silicon Valley self-service/ user group support model is right for sophisticated legal research models: Can Generative AI come to the rescue? 

The session will be moderated by Scott Bailey, Director of Research & Knowledge, Eversheds Sutherland.

Addition sessions will cover API’s and Knowledge Management, Case studies on collaboration tools and knowledge management, meeting client needs post-pandemic, training, tools and technology, competitive intelligence and of course the looming impact of Generative AI. Access the full agenda at this link.

Register for the conference at this link.

As the 2024 budget planning season ramps up, we all look to both internal and external intelligence to support renewal, cancellation and acquisition decisions.

In August many of my readers participated in the annual Start/Stop survey which was open during the month of August 2023. I partnered with Harbor to conduct the survey and present the results On Thursday, September 14, 2023, at the third annual Legal Information + Knowledge Services Conference (LINKS)— a full day of virtual thought leadership conference.

As in the past, this survey was intended to  gather feedback on both products and projects which readers started or stopped during the past year or plan to start or stop in the near future. For this years survey I added new questions related to the emergence of generative AI. Thirty-tree organizations participated in the survey (93% were law firms)

Some overall trends – Generative AI trending up. Analytics Market Shaking out.

Generative AI although legal publishers have been embedding and utilizing AI in their products for decades, the emergence of large language models (LLMs) has captured the market in a rather feverish way. There are firms out on the bleeding edge, but most are  holding back and struggling to create an AI policy and select from the ever expanding galaxy of products. Vendors are plunging ahead with AI offerings.

The most dramatic “shape shifting” market event was Thomson Reuters acquisition of Casetext, less than a year after the launch of WESTLAW Precision. The move was clearly designed to catapult TR  over competitors, who are developing  muti-modallarge language models  based AI products internally.

Continue Reading The 2023 Start/Stop Survey: CoCounsel Best New Product, Analytics Segment Shakeout.

LexisNexis® Legal & Professional has announced that Lexis+ AI™ is now available to U.S. customer’s Given the legal market skittishness about both the security and reliability of Generative AI, (GAI) the Lexis + AI launch meeting for the legal press focused on how Lexis+ AI will deliver encrypted, secure and reliable results. Jeff Pfeifer, Chief Product Officer, North America and UK, provided the overview an demo.

Reliable research results. Pfeifer explained that the new AI solution is designed to deliver trusted results because the system relies on Lexis authoritative primary and secondary materials combined with Shepard’s citations which provides direct links to supporting authorities for all GAI based answers.

Lexis announced its commercial preview program back in  May 2023. This provided a living laboratory where Lexis could get feedback from users across all segments of the legal market (global law firms, corporate legal departments, small law firms, and U.S. courts).

The Lexis+ AI press release asserts that Lexis+ AI answers offer the fastest GAI  “answers” solution in the market.” The “conversational dialog” can respond to up to five sequential questions.

Hallucination Free At the time of launch Lexis+ AI is the only legal generative AI solution with citations linked in its responses, “providing trusted legal results backed by verifiable authority.” This  minimizes the risk of invented content, or hallucinations, and checks all citations against Shepard’s to ensure citation validation. The solution also offers users the ability to input specific citations to verify accuracy and flag when a citation might be wrong. Customers can give instant feedback within the product to continually improve product performance, content relevance, and overall product accuracy.

Continue Reading Lexis+ AI Launch Promises Secure, “Hallucination Free” Generative AI Solution With Linked Legal Citations

Today vLex  is announcing a suite of AI tools in its research assistant platform Vincent AI. Since the merger with Fastcase in 2023, vLex has offered the “world’s most comprehensive AI legal research platform.”  vLex has launched an invitation-only beta which includes a suite of large language model (LLM) tools. The beta will be offered to additional users in the coming months.

This announcement ratchets up the already feverish competition taking place in the legal research market. Thomson Reuters recently purchased Casetext CoCounsel for 650 Million and is expected to launch an integration with Westlaw Precision before the end of the year. LexisNexis is testing AI tools with customers and Bloomberg Law has made AI tools available in an Innovation Studio. All are expected to launch LLM enabled AI tools in the near future. I anticipate that we are in for a year (or maybe a decade) of leapfrogging AI technology launches. .

“AI tools are only as good as the data they rely on,” said vLex CEO Lluís Faus, “and the vLex law library is one of the largest collections of structured law on the planet, including leading expert commentary. That leads to unprecedented insights for legal tasks. For legal LLMs, this release is a major improvement. It is as big as the jump from ChatGPT to GPT4. The results are astonishing.”

Continue Reading vLex Launches First Global AI Legal Assistant: Vincent AI for Research and Drafting