CRIV CONNECTION

Author: Mary Jenkins, Library and Research Services Manager at Devine, Millimet & Branch, P.A.

Introduction

The spring CRIV semiannual call with Thomson Reuters (TR) took place on June 4, 2025. TR showcased recent and upcoming product developments and responded to questions from the CRIV representative. As Thomson Reuter’s Blythe McCoy noted in her introductory remarks, the pace of change and product development is remarkably fast. These notes reflect highlights but cannot capture the depth of the hour-long discussion. Luckily for many readers, the AALL Annual Meeting & Conference in July will provide ample opportunity to connect with Thomson Reuters representatives for more information.

Participants

Mary Jenkins (CRIV Vice Chair and Liaison to Thomson Reuters); Blythe McCoy (Thomson Reuters Information Management Consultant); Rachel Beithon (Senior Product Manager, Westlaw); Dave S. Corbett (Westlaw Product Development); Valerie McConnell (Thomson Reuters VP, Solutions Engineering); and Vani Ungapen (AALL Executive Director)

Litigation Analytics

Rachel Beithon noted that Monitor Suite was retired in late September 2024, and much of the content and functionality was moved into the docket-based Litigation Analytics, if the information was not there already. Users with Edge or Precision have had access to basic Litigation Analytics with judge, law firm, and attorney information. The sunset of Monitor Suite expanded company information in Litigation Analytics for the law firm market. Since the retirement of Monitor Suite, TR has released Opportunity Finder features, law firm comparisons, and patent analytics information, and made enhancements to delivery options. One can research by judge, law firm, company, case type, and other fields.

CRIV asked about the scope of coverage. Experience Analytics includes full coverage of federal courts with robust motion and outcomes analytics, plus damages analytics for federal district courts. Litigation Analytics scrapes ~1,200 state courts, with varying degrees of coverage, including motion information for 22 state courts.  As is the case with similar products, the depth of content varies based on the court. The most common missing information in dockets is judge, attorney, or law firm, except where it is on the docket sheet. California state courts do not currently have motion information, though docket analytics are included. TR does not currently cover outcomes or damages information for the state courts. Coverage information is readily available from all Litigation Analytics pages. TR just recently released docket summarization at the individual docket level.

Other recent developments in Litigation Analytics include the law firm comparison report to compare litigation experience as well as more patent content including assignments and granted patents (based on patent documents as filed with the USPTO.) The added patent content allows the user to see a company’s patents—what has been filed, assigned, and granted. Additionally, TR rolled out Opportunity Finder which provides litigation-related company information. Law firm deals data with attorneys, law firm, and additional mergers and acquisitions and patent information is estimated for July. This tool is a significant resource for law firm business development purposes in addition to company research. More filter options, including the selection of multiple filters at once, to be released this summer, will be a welcome addition.

TR added more law firm-related filters and Excel report delivery options to Litigation Analytics in late 2024, including opposing firms and other involved counsel filtering. Since many users use Excel as their delivery option of choice, TR added fields, splitting out previously combined data. This approach extended to company information so that users can select just subsidiaries, for example, before creating a report. More customized report options will be released this summer. TR also responded to user feedback by modifying the copy link function to update the data when the recipient runs what is now a dynamic linked report.

CoCounsel and Agentic AI Tools

Valerie McConnell remarked that TR’s significant CoCounsel development since our last call in November is the expansion of the number of services from which users can access CoCounsel’s AI legal assistant, particularly CoCounsel’s integration with the Microsoft Office suite, including Word, Outlook, and Teams, as TR seeks to deploy CoCounsel where attorneys and other legal professionals are already working.

During this meeting, we focused on the integration with Outlook as well as CoCounsel Drafting in Microsoft Word. Valerie highlighted the centrality of agentic AI to TR’s future roadmap, moving beyond task-based AI work to the type of AI that can be given an objective, a project containing multiple steps, and the AI is sophisticated enough to figure out what those steps are and execute it autonomously, using fewer prompts. TR’s agentic AI is guided by Practical Law content as well as the expertise of Practical Law editors in building these guided workflows. Expect the release of agentic AI developments for legal professionals this summer. CRIV saw CoCounsel AI live in Microsoft Word and Outlook, using the example of updating a client’s employee policies, typically a multi-step assignment. With agentic AI, a prompt like “Help me update my employee handbook to comply with regulation XYZ,”  for example, demonstrated that the AI broke out that project into individual tasks without the user having to prompt. At each step, the user can verify by reviewing the AI’s process and sources, or thinking, as it were. The legal professional is in charge and can view drafting notes, link to underlying content, and edit documents. Rather than isolated tasks or individual prompts, agentic AI works toward objectives and uses workflows within standard applications such as starting from a panel in an Outlook email. In a real-world environment, an associate might receive an email directing them to draft new terms for a stock purchase agreement—given some new regulation— and to see if the arbitration clause as written is enforceable. During the call, Valerie demonstrated Westlaw Precision research pertinent to the associate’s assignment, using the CoCounsel assistant integration within Outlook and then drafting a new term sheet, still while in Outlook and then downloaded into Word for revision following the direction provided in the associate’s assignment. In a few minutes, the CoCounsel assistant reviewed the stock purchase agreement and research and then changed all the terms to conform to the requirements in the modified term sheet, redlining it for the user to accept or reject. Each redlined change has an associated comment in Word so that the user can follow the AI’s work and explanation.

In response to a question about the term “CoCounsel,” Valerie explained that CoCounsel refers to the legally programmed generative AI agent for the TR product suite as well as MS Office applications. It is more than CoCounsel Core, which is used for document review, analysis, and summarization.

Westlaw

Dave Corbett provided an update on Westlaw Precision product developments, highlighting the components that are made possible by generative AI. He commented on the interplay between multiple AI-powered tools and functionality that are the underpinning of research workflows.

Dave drew our attention to Claims Explorer, a generative tool that is designed to help people identify claims, counterclaims, and the liability associated with a particular fact pattern. He entered his facts and retrieved a list of federal and state claims for the selected jurisdictions, claims that are supported, and those that need additional facts. Users will now find a link for defenses under each claim, providing the user defenses based on the facts as alleged and how they apply to a particular claim. Additionally, Claims Explorer now shows “Actionable Under” which essentially redirects the user to the applicable section of the code.

Next, we reviewed AI-generated jurisdictional surveys, a quickly navigable format with both statutory and regulatory components.

Dave also spoke about a recent change to Quick Check, TR’s Westlaw Precision document analysis tool. Quick Check can now handle documents that don’t have any citations by entering the statements of law the user believes to be relevant, and Quick Check will surface any applicable underlying authority. We also looked at a development with quotation analysis in Quick Check. Users are accustomed to using Quick Check to verify quotes and highlight differences between the source material and the quote in the user’s document. It has always provided some context for the analyzed quotation. Quick Check now identifies mischaracterizations, those uses of a quote that take it out of context and perhaps manipulate it for the user’s purposes.

Dave then turned to generative AI summarization of dockets, which are often voluminous and rather tedious to review, to demonstrate the speed, utility, and format of the summaries. The AI displays the components of the docket, the jurisdiction and governing law, the case type, key dates, allegations, counterclaims, remedies, and proposed and awarded amounts, for example. Rachel commented that the ability to print off the tiles in docket summaries will be included in a release in the coming month.

Next, Dave highlighted generative AI capabilities specific to key treatises on Westlaw Precision, like O’Connor’s and the Rutter Group practice guides. The user can now ask the treatise a question and the generative AI will summarize the relevant treatise material, providing links to the referenced sections.

Dave showed us Parallel Search on Westlaw, accessed above the advanced search link. Parallel Search looks for conceptually similar results in the text of a case, without head notes. He commented on its usefulness for finding case law that is semantically similar to the input language. Filters help the user home in on relevant cases. He also demonstrated the use of generative AI to summarize negative treatment in a narrative format, typically a challenging task.

Dave concluded with a quick demonstration of the CoCounsel chat assistant within Westlaw Precision. He showed, for example, that the AI anticipates some questions the user might have and offers options like provide a case summary or show what the holdings of the case are. The user can use the search box to interact with the document in other ways as well, prompting it with follow-up questions. Dave noted the ubiquitous presence of agentic AI across TR platforms, putting its integrated capabilities readily at hand regardless of the application in use at the time.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

If you are curious about TR tools and their application as described briefly here, visit the TR booth in the exhibit hall at the AALL Annual Meeting & Conference in July for a deeper dive and a discussion with their knowledgeable staff.