On Thursday, September 14, 2023, Harbor is hosting the third annual Legal Information + Knowledge Services Conference (LINKS)— a full day of virtual thought leadership content especially curated for law firm information professionals.  Register and see full agenda HERE.

The conference is dedicated to exploring emerging issues, trends, and best practices to advance

LexisNexis Legal & Regulatory  has released the results of its International Legal Generative AI Survey. The survey asked 7,950 lawyers, law students, and consumers across the U.S., U.K., Canada, and France about their overall awareness, its anticipated impact on the practice of law, use of generative AI, and expectations of adoption.

“Our survey confirms what we hear from customers all over the world every day, that they are excited about the potential of generative AI to help improve their productivity, efficiency, and overall business and practice of law,” said Mike Walsh, CEO of LexisNexis Legal & Professional. “Customer-driven innovation is core to the approach we take with product development, and LexisNexis is excited that our Lexis+ AI platform safely and securely provides critical generative AI tools to help legal professionals excel in their jobs.”

It is clear from the survey that relatively few lawyers have used Generative AI and I have to assume that even fewer have used it for their actual legal work. The market has become painfully aware of the “hallucinated cases” that can be generated using open source GPT Chat for legal research. Lexis Nexis will soon launch Lexis+ AI. All of its competitors (Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg Law, Wolters Kluwer, vLex) are laser focused on developing or launching Generative AI products that can not only drive efficiency but also address lawyers legitimate concerns regarding the ethics and security of these products.

Continue Reading LexisNexis International Legal Generative AI Survey – In House Counsel  Expectations Will Drive Law Firm Adoption

The American Arbitration Association (AAA®), the global leader in arbitration and mediation services and data analytics, announced that Steve Errick will join their international division, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution® (ICDR®), as Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer.

Steve has been a highly visible presence at legal tech

Thomson Reuters has released its Future of Professionals Report. The research was conducted during the months of May and June 2023 via an online survey. More than 1,200 professionals from the legal, tax and accounting, and risk professions employed by corporations, firms, and government agencies completed the survey.

“We are at a unique moment where we have the opportunity to realize the benefits of human intelligence, thinking and collaboration differently, while using the potential of AI to overcome some of professionals biggest pain points.” said Steve Hasker, president and CEO, Thomson Reuters. “Through the application of AI to perform more mundane tasks, professionals have the unique opportunity to address human capital issues such as job satisfaction, well-being, and work-life balance. This will in turn unlock time for professionals to focus on complex work that adds value to their client’s needs.”

View of video of CEO Steve Hasker speaking about the Future of Legal Professionals at this Link.

One interesting feature of this study is a use of sentiment analysis for measuring and representing the impact of AI. Here is an expample

Highlights:

• Optimism for productivity: 45% of professionals pin their biggest AI aspirations on improved productivity, expecting benefits for their talent, customers, and environment.

Continue Reading Thomson Reuters Releases Report on Impact of AI of Future of Legal Professionals.

This survey is intended to  gather feedback on both products and projects which you started or stopped during the past year. I had added additional questions related to the emergence of generative AI.

Please take a few minutes to respond to the survey at this link. The results will be summarized and posted here in

Today LexisNexis is announcing that their soon to be launched AI powered solutions will be integrated into Microsoft 365. The product integrations include– Lexis+®, Lexis ® Connect, Lexis ® Create, and Lexis ® Create Plugin with Microsoft 365 Copilot. Both companies are committed to providing legal professionals with “intelligent, AI-powered tools, enhanced capabilities, and more efficient, guided workflow experiences”  inside the suite of Microsoft products where they currently work: Microsoft Outlook, Word, and Teams.  Back in May Lexis announced two AI initiatives a commercial preview and the AI Insider Program as well as plans for incorporating generative AI into their product. Lexis announced its commitment to launching GPT enabled solutions with the Microsoft Azure Open AI Service which has already been rolled out to customers via Lexis+.

I recall Lexis as having a long history of integrations with Microsoft products. According to Jeff Pfeifer, LexisNexis Chief Product Officer Canada, UK and USA. “The company began working closely with Microsoft in the 1990s when we acquired the Jurisoft product line. These products were among the first legal market tools that delivered bespoke formatting tools integrated with Word. These solutions later evolved to become Lexis for Microsoft Office and later still, Lexis Create. Lexis Create is our first solution built entirely for the Microsoft 365 platform, a key technology enabler for delivery of generative AI in Word, Outlook and Teams. Our customers can expect integration of generative AI capabilities in Lexis Create in Q3 of this year and in Lexis Connect in Q4.”

Jeff Reihl, CTO of LexisNexis Legal & Professional is quoted in the press release “Microsoft and LexisNexis have a long history of collaboration, and we’re excited about how our Microsoft-integrated products will help improve the lives and work product of legal professionals. Lexis Connect, Create and Copilot truly embody our strategy of creating a fully integrated ecosystem, inserting world-class legal data, content and technologies directly into attorney workflows. To enhance this, we’re incorporating professional-grade generative AI capabilities into our current and future products to elevate legal work and help lawyers be more efficient at their jobs.”

LexisNexis Products Integrated with Microsoft include:

  • Lexis+: Azure OpenAI Service has been rolled out to customers via Lexis+.


Continue Reading LexisNexis Announces Integration with Microsoft 365 Copilot/Generative AI Solutions