CRIV CONNECTION

Author: Mary Jenkins, Library and Research Services Manager at Devine, Millimet & Branch, PA

Introduction

The CRIV semiannual call with Thomson Reuters (TR) took place December 5, 2024. As is generally the case, the call showcased Thomson Reuters product developments and responses to questions introduced by CRIV. This report summarizes product enhancements as reported by Thomson Reuters, followed by Q&A, and concludes with product release deadlines and links to additional information.

Participants

Mary Jenkins (CRIV vice-chair and liaison to Thomson Reuters); Blythe McCoy (Thomson Reuters Information Management Consultant); Dave Corbett (Westlaw Product Development); Valerie McConnell (Thomson Reuters Senior Director of Customer Success); Zach Ratzman (Director, Practical Law); Shamika Dalton (AALL Executive Board Liaison to CRIV); and Vani Ungapen (AALL Executive Director)

CoCounsel Core and Drafting

Valerie McConnell demonstrated CoCounsel 2.0, the newest version of CoCounsel Core. Users can choose between two different versions of CoCounsel: one using a short-context window model and one using a long-context window model. The latter includes more expansive AI chat capabilities, as well as a new CoCounsel skill—Compare Documents—which can be used to compare up to 200 documents at once. During the demonstration, Valerie instructed the AI to compare various documents and demonstrated how targeted prompts can guide the AI to focus on specific issues, producing a more precise comparison. The AI-generated answers include side-by-side comparison charts and footnotes, which explain the AI’s responses, as well as the specific source materials that the AI considered in arriving at its conclusions. Valerie also demonstrated how CoCounsel Core can conduct legal research by grounding its responses in Westlaw Precision content. Valerie explained that CoCounsel acknowledges when there’s no authority or an absence of information but will also surface related information and topically relevant information from Westlaw or Practical Law. The latest version of CoCounsel Core also includes more robust drafting capabilities, enabling users to draft a wide variety of documents by simply prompting CoCounsel, or uploading documents or templates for CoCounsel to use when drafting. Valerie also demonstrated CoCounsel Drafting, which is an add-on functionality for CoCounsel Core that integrates with Microsoft Word. CoCounsel Drafting can draft contract clauses based on Practical Law content or to documents in a customer’s own document management system, as well as publicly available documents from the SEC. Valerie noted that the focus of CoCounsel Drafting has been on transactional documents, but Thomson Reuters will release litigation drafting capabilities in early 2025, including the ability to draft discovery requests and responses, as well as factual allegations for complaints.

Westlaw Precision – AI Jurisdictional Surveys

Dave Corbett highlighted new generative AI tools, beyond AI-assisted research, embedded in Westlaw Precision. He first addressed AI Jurisdictional Surveys, demonstrating the ability to ask a question and choose the jurisdictions for which you want answers. The AI summarizes the law and points directly to the responsive statutes and regulations. The user can jump to a particular jurisdiction and choose the preferred delivery method. AI jurisdictional surveys currently focus on statutes and regulations, but Thomson Reuters is working to add case law, which will significantly enhance the power of this jurisdictional comparison tool. He noted that users will soon also be able to update previously created surveys using a simple update feature.

Westlaw Precision – Claims Explorer

Claims Explorer, another generative AI tool in Westlaw Precision, assists the user by identifying the claims associated with a particular fact pattern. Thomson Reuters pointed to the large number of complaints that are amended to add claims as one of the many reasons Claims Explorer is valuable. The researcher simply enters a fact pattern for which there may be a claim in plain, generic language. In minutes, Claims Explorer provides federal and state statutory, common law, and constitutional claims and marks them as either supported or requiring additional facts. Claims Explorer currently works federally, and in California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Texas. Georgia and Pennsylvania are about to launch, and more states will follow in 2025. Claims Explorer links to the cited sources, indicates why the claim applies and/or identifies the specific circumstances that suggest more information may be helpful. Among other use cases, Claims Explorer looks like a good tool for responding to a client’s initial questions about a legal issue and specific circumstances, or as part of an investigation to help discover what additional information an attorney may need from their client(s).

Westlaw Precision – Mischaracterization Identification in Quick Check

For many years, researchers have been able to run documents through Quick Check, Westlaw’s document analysis tool. Among many other things, Quick Check could use Quotation Analysis to identify quotations and indicate where the quoted language differed from the source. Now, as Dave Corbett explained, a new generative AI tool within Quick Check can also consider context and identify instances in which a quotation is being used in a context that differs from that of its source. In 2025, we can expect to see this component of Quick Check expand beyond quotes and be able to evaluate other language in the target document to identify potential mischaracterization—what one might describe as a “BS detector.”

Practical Law

Zach Ratzman highlighted the integration of Practical Law into CoCounsel, which adds to the seamless nature of the experience. Previously called Ask Practical Law, Search and Summarize surfaces results faster now that processing time has decreased dramatically. Users will also find in-line links incorporated into results, as well as links in footnotes and extracts from the cited Practical Law resources. Zach also mentioned several content enhancements in Practical Law, created and curated by a large team of attorney editors, including the expansive and continually updated AI Toolkit with resources like the Generative AI Use in the Workplace Policy template. Thomson Reuters notes that for smaller states for which there is typically fewer state-specific templates, users can start with Practical Law’s jurisdiction-neutral templates and use Practical Law’s state content to create a state-specific version of the document.

In response to questions posed by AALL CRIV, Thomson Reuters offered these remarks:

CRIV: Regarding the Thomson Reuters late charges issue [CRIV received a request for assistance some months ago related to implementation of late fees],how widespread is/was the problem with late payments? Has the implementation of late frees markedly reduced late payments? From TR’s point of view, what is the overall customer response?
TR: “TR is following industry standards regarding late fees for late payments and these terms are also part of the terms of subscriber contracts. We encourage customers to make payments electronically as it is more secure and a much faster process, typically eliminating the cause of late payments due to the slowness of check writing processes and postal delays. Here is some additional information that may be helpful: Account management for legal customers,” and the Help and Support page—the “Billing and Payments” tab has individual articles for various payment options. When pressed for a sense of customer response to the policy and the overall impact of the change for Thomson Reuters, TR responded that it was not able to provide that information.

CRIV: CoCounsel 2.0 in Westlaw was rolled out to law schools recently and some academic law librarians reported challenges associated with limited planning time for its integration into teaching and learning. What has TR done to facilitate the roll out at law schools and in collaboration with law librarians?
TR: To help prepare faculty and librarians for the arrival of CoCounsel, Westlaw AAR and other AI tools, we began with formal announcements of our January 1, 2025, launch at the 2024 AALL Annual Meeting & Conference and LWI in July followed by faculty updates from their Account Managers, webinars, newsletters, and awareness campaigns throughout the fall semester. Below you will find helpful information on product launch timelines and other resources for the upcoming launch.

While librarians and faculty were excited that AI tools were coming on January 1, we heard your feedback that you would appreciate early access to these tools ahead of the full launch. In response, we announced early access to CoCounsel Core for all non-student accounts on November 4, 2024. We hope you are utilizing this early access period to acclimate to CoCounsel Core and prepare for the spring semester. While we are not able to provide early access to AI enhancements on Westlaw at this time, your Account Manager is available to assist you with questions, as needed.

CRIV: What guidance or resources is Thomson Reuters offering law firms and corporate counsel as those sectors contemplate use of generative AI and prepare policies, training, and responses to client inquiries about risk management and confidentiality?
TR: Each legal institution is creating unique policies and procedures regarding the uses of Generative AI within their organizations. We have pointed our customers to a variety of resources from Thomson Reuters that include both Westlaw and Practical Law resources to assist with creating these policies. Our TR team works with each organization to incorporate their policies and procedures at the start of training programs as the AI tools are being launched. Many librarians are joining these sessions to review the organization’s specific policies prior to the beginning of the Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel and Practical Law with CoCounsel trainings. Here are some resources that we have shared, and organizations have used to create their bespoke Gen AI policies and procedures: Thomson Reuters Artificial Intelligence; Westlaw Artificial Intelligence Legal Materials and News; Practical Law Artificial Intelligence Toolkit; and Practical Law Gen AI Use Workplace Policy Sample Document, in addition to in-product information.

Additional Information Provided by Thomson Reuters:

Product Availability:

• Practical Law Search & Summarize (formerly Ask Practical Law AI)
  • Launched to all users on January 24, 2024
• CoCounsel Core (https://cocounsel.thomsonreuters.com):
• Launched to all faculty (non-student users) on November 4, 2024
• All users receive access on January 1, 2025
• CoCounsel Drafting (available via Microsoft Word Add-In):
  • All users receive access on January 1, 2025
• Westlaw AI Enhancements (AI-Assisted Research, AI Jurisdictional Surveys, Claims Explorer & AI Enhancements to Quick Check):
  • All users receive access on January 1, 2025

Important Resource Links:

All links require a Law School account to view.

• Faculty CoCounsel Early Access Program landing page (launched Oct 2024).
• Academic GenAI launch information page (launched Aug 2024).
• GenAI product training via our On-Demand Learning Portal (launched Aug 2024).

Faculty Webinars:

All links require a Law School account to view.

• Westlaw: AI-Assisted Research Training – Friday, January 10 at 12:00 p.m. (EST) – RSVP
  • CoCounsel: Advanced Prompting – Thursday, January 16 at 12:00 p.m. (EST) – RSVP and Friday, January 24 at 12:00 p.m. (EST)  – RSVP
  • CoCounsel: Office Hours – Friday, February 7 at 12:00 p.m. (EST) – RSVP and Friday, February 21 at 12:00 p.m. (EST) – RSVP
  • Recordings of previous webinars can be found on our Gen AI launch information page.

Email Communications:

•  If you believe you have missed our newsletters, double check your email preferences.
  • You may also view messages within the notifications section of the Law School portal.

In addition, the Thomson Reuters Information Management Consultants conduct monthly national webinars and invite all librarians which include the academic segment. Many of the topics have been on Westlaw Precision. You can find a link to our webinar recordings and lots of other on-demand training resources available on our Information Professional site under the Learnings tab. Under Insights you will also see our quarterly newsletter that also showcases new content and enhancements.