Our firm has been using Thomson Reuters ’ Legal AI for about six months now. It’s been interesting.
We use two products: CoCounsel and Westlaw Edge, and the products have evolved dramatically during those six months.
We’re now at the point where CoCounsel is good for timelines, reviewing documents for clauses and drafting the start of something based on a firm’s existing precedent.
Westlaw Edge is a powerful research tool that lets us watch the resources it is checking in real time, then review it’s answers and check the results in the caselaw it uses. It’s great about 50% of the time, good another 30%, and “OMG we’d get sued if we used this” the remaining 20%.
The thing about using AI in our firm is that we don’t ask it to do something and assume it did it. We are paranoid, which is a trait you want in your business lawyers: all caselaw citations are reviewed in detail to ensure the case says what the AI thinks it says.
A case was recently reported in which a lawyer likely used AI (he refused to admit it, but the Judge isn’t buying it) and cited real cases but included seven fictional quotes from those cases.
As a litigator entering her 34th year, I still review every single case in my factum so I understand the facts, the decision and the specific quotes I’m using. I cannot imagine feeling confident in Court if I didn’t do that.
How are lawyers relying on AI without checking everything, confident about their arguments? How are they prepared to meet the arguments of the other side? The short answer is they are not.
AI can definitely level the playing field with larger firms for tasks such as due diligence and specific document review. However, it is not a replacement for critical thinking.
Inga B. Andriessen, Managing Lawyer