This unique advantage means we are delivering cutting-edge solutions to enable higher quality work, faster, while reflecting the needs and expectations of how professionals work today and will in the future.

However, there is not an AI system that is entirely free from the possibility of inaccuracies.

A听recent case听was published from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California that included sanctions for the submission of a brief containing numerous hallucinated citations. Through initial research to create the brief, a public large language model was used and the accuracy of several citations from the preliminary information were not verified.

Our investigation found no evidence that either CoCounsel or Westlaw was the source of the fabricated cases. We confirmed that Quick Check on Westlaw Precision identified all the issues with the erroneous quotes.

This case illustrates that despite the transformative capabilities of AI within the legal industry, .

At 成人VR视频, we strongly advocate for human verification of AI-generated results. That is why our customers see guidance in each of our products for a human to verify all AI generated results. And 成人VR视频 offers multiple solutions including Quick Check on both Westlaw Edge and Westlaw Precision, KeyCite, amongst others, to help verify information.

成人VR视频 is committed to building responsible AI solutions that legal professionals can rely on while respecting the irreplaceable qualities humans bring to the table: judgment, empathy, and understanding of human nuance. This human-centric approach to AI isn’t just good practice 鈥� it’s essential for maintaining the integrity of legal work.

This post was written by Steve Assie, general manager, Global Large Law Firms, 成人VR视频

Continued climb in law firm productivity听

I joined 成人VR视频 in February, and a notable way we鈥檝e seen the impact of generative AI solutions is the uptick in lawyer productivity. For the first time in years, Q2 saw a majority of law firms experience productivity growth. By Q3, an astounding 64% of law firms reported productivity growth, building on the gains made in Q2.听听

This uptick underscores how technology is key to boosting law firm profitability. Law firms that invest in new technology as well as adopt AI and generative AI solutions to streamline workflows and improve the efficiency and quality of their work are best positioned to improve client satisfaction and drive sustainable productivity growth.听

Build, buy, partner strategy听

I鈥檓 pleased with the progress 成人VR视频 has made on our vision to provide all the legal professionals we serve with a professional-grade GenAI assistant to augment their work. We鈥檝e committed to investing $100 million annually in AI over the coming years, including investing more than $200 million to incorporate responsible AI into our solutions鈥�in the past year alone.听听听

This year we continued investing in the latest technology through our build, buy, partner program. On the buy side in the legal space, our acquisition of Safe Sign Technologies 鈥� a UK legal large language model (LLM) startup 鈥� in August is proving a great fit. We鈥檙e incorporating Safe Sign鈥檚 tech and talent into our industry-leading content and expertise to bring customers even greater quality and performance from our AI solutions.鈥�听

On the build side, we introduced 19 legal generative AI solutions in 2024. Highlights include CoCounsel 2.0, the professional-grade GenAI assistant; Claims Explorer, a generative AI skill available in鈥�; CoCounsel Drafting, an end-to-end drafting solution that streamlines and improves the drafting process for legal professionals within Microsoft Word; and Mischaracterization Identification in Quick Check and AI Jurisdictional Surveys 鈥� two generative AI research features that help customers save substantial time and deliver greater confidence that legal research is accurate, thorough, and complete. We also delivered deeper integration of CoCounsel into Westlaw and Practical Law.听

On the partner side, we鈥檙e working with Microsoft, OpenAI, Google and others on plugins and integrations to enhance the generative AI-powered capabilities in our solutions.鈥疎very aspect of our build, buy, partner strategy is geared toward helping our customers automate their workflows, provide powerful insights to their clients and drive efficiencies.鈥��听

A maturing market听听

2024 saw the implementation of legal generative AI solutions as well as efforts to benchmark these solutions. Our benchmarking support is reflected in our participation in studies including Vals.ai plus two consortium efforts 鈥� from Stanford and Litig 鈥� exploring how to best evaluate legal AI.听听

I believe that benchmarking can improve both the development and the adoption of AI, but it鈥檚 just鈥痮ne component in how we consider and understand the benefits AI delivers for our customers.鈥疘 look forward to our ongoing collaboration with customers and industry partners as we continue working to minimize inaccuracies and increase the usefulness of the research outcomes for generative AI solutions.听

To date, 15% of law firms have adopted and implemented legal-specific generative AI solutions. I anticipate we鈥檒l soon see a wave of fast followers 鈥� eager to be perceived as innovative 鈥� that will dramatically strengthen generative AI implementation.听

I 肠补苍鈥檛 think of a more exciting time to have joined a business. Where our industry is at now mirrors the early internet era: initial excitement, followed by strategic integration.听听

We鈥檙e fast approaching a maturing market where legal professionals will not just desire but require AI capabilities for their workflows. We鈥檒l see more implementation of generative AI solutions among legal professionals as they increasingly realize the tangible benefits.鈥�鈥�听

For more on how generative AI is shaping the future of the legal profession, please check out my interview.听听

This is a guest post from Raghu Ramanathan, president, Legal Professionals, 成人VR视频.听

Below, CJ Lechtenberg, senior director, Westlaw Product Management, 成人VR视频, shares her insights on developing Mischaracterization Identification, a generative AI capability to help detect mischaracterizations and omissions in legal briefs.

In the five years since Quick Check was introduced, you鈥檝e added many enhancements including Quick Check Contrary Authority Identification, Quick Check Judicial and Quick Check Quotation Analysis. How did integrating generative AI make the Mischaracterization Identification enhancement different than previous ones?

Lechtenberg: This enhancement takes researchers beyond the step of knowing what might be a potential mischaracterization to an explanation of why something might be a potential mischaracterization 鈥� and that is radically different from any feature we鈥檝e deployed in Quick Check before.

I鈥檓 sure it鈥檒l come as no surprise when I say that generative AI is just a completely different beast. Lay people may think about the law as being black and white.听You can do this; you 肠补苍鈥檛 do that.听But legal professionals know that the law is really a sea of varying shades of gray. With machine learning, we wrestled with how we could ever give the machine enough data to figure out all the different ways an attorney may mischaracterize the law.

In Quick Check Quotation Analysis prior to the Mischaracterization Identification enhancement, we highlighted the actual textual differences 鈥� additions, omissions, and changes 鈥� in the quotations and showed the context around the quotes.听Doing so certainly saved researchers a significant amount of time and helped them spot issues they might not otherwise find, but the onus was still on researchers to review everything and determine what the precise differences were and how material they might be, if at all.听Even with the additional context provided, it could still be difficult to determine whether the quotations were taken out of context, especially if the quotes themselves didn鈥檛 appear to be different.

In developing Mischaracterization Identification, we recognized that the task of analyzing quotations and their context is so nuanced that attorneys will have different expectations for whether a mischaracterization occurred, so we needed to provide more than just categorizations. We found that large language models (LLMs) can generate nuanced descriptions of potential mischaracterizations, versus just explicit categorizations, and do it well, which is hugely beneficial for this type of task.

How will using Mischaracterization Identification give legal professionals and law firms a competitive advantage? How will judges using it benefit?听

Lechtenberg: The advantages of using the new Mischaracterization Identification are substantial for both legal professionals and the judiciary 鈥� both in terms of speed of review and quality of work product.听When we launched Quick Check Quotation Analysis in 2020, customers, both legal professionals and the judiciary, lamented about how time-consuming it is for them to review quotations and how challenging it is to spot differences. It is a mentally taxing task and often our brains fill in the blanks 鈥� interpreting what we think a brief maybe should say but actually doesn鈥檛.听 Attorneys never have a surplus of time, so the last thing they want to do is spend the little bit they have on the most tedious of tasks and still end up missing potential problems.

For attorneys, Mischaracterization Identification will help them efficiently and accurately make contextual misstatement and omission determinations for their opponents鈥� and their own quotations and the context surrounding those quotations. The fear of missing their own mistakes is very real for attorneys, but the possibility of missing the opportunity to capitalize on their opponents鈥� mistakes is an even larger concern. This new enhancement reduces both of those worries and will help attorneys be even better advocates for their clients.

Judges will also be able to effectively review the filings of parties in matters before them much faster. Attorneys owe a duty of candor to the judiciary and the Mischaracterization Identification feature will help flag any potential issues quickly. An added benefit, which members of the judiciary or their staff perhaps haven鈥檛 considered, is the ability to analyze their own orders and opinions to ensure that they haven鈥檛 made mistakes that could be appealed. This new enhancement will help alert judges and law clerks to potential issues before they finalize their opinions.

What early feedback are you hearing from customers?

Lechtenberg: In a recent survey, 93% of law firm professionals told us they鈥檝e seen opposing counsel misuse a quotation, 66% said they鈥檝e seen misrepresentations by an associate or colleague, and 65% of corporate respondents said they check the accuracy of outside counsel鈥檚 quotations.听The need to review opposing counsels鈥� and colleagues鈥� briefs for mischaracterizations of the law is still a very real issue for attorneys. Likewise, attorneys have said they鈥檙e always concerned about the accuracy of their work and that maintaining their reputation as a credible litigator with courts and opposing counsel is incredibly important.

Customers are extremely excited about this new Quick Check enhancement to help combat these concerns and we鈥檝e received positive feedback from them.听One law firm managing partner stated that they would use this tool a lot.听They cite-check their opponents鈥� briefs, so any shortcuts are beneficial to them. They recognize that most of the time, errors are harmless, but occasionally there are things they want to bring to the court鈥檚 attention and this feature will help them spot those issues more quickly and accurately.

Another law firm partner said this new feature is the 鈥渦ltimate security blanket鈥� because everything attorneys do is based on their credibility, and this feature alerting them to quotes being taken out of context before filing with the court would calm some of those fears.

Any surprising or unexpected moments as the team worked on developing or launching Mischaracterization Identification?

Lechtenberg: The fact that we鈥檝e accomplished this now with the use of LLMs is exciting, a little surprising and a long time coming. I鈥檓 an attorney who leads a team of attorneys; we鈥檙e literally trained to question everything and have a healthy dose of skepticism.听But I have been dreaming about a mischaracterization identification feature in Quick Check ever since we developed Quotation Analysis more than five years ago. At my core, I believed someday this could be achieved, but for years traditional machine learning approaches were just not powerful or nuanced enough to do it well.

Leveraging LLMs for a use case like this is a new frontier like we鈥檝e never seen before.听The LLM鈥檚 ability to analyze text from an uploaded document and compare that text to the text from the cited case used to support the argument and then go beyond highlighting textual differences and provide an actual explanation of what may be problematic 鈥� whether that鈥檚 a selective quote, omitted context or a misinterpreted holding 鈥� has been absolutely astounding.

What鈥檚 the one thing you want everyone to know about Mischaracterization Identification?

Lechtenberg: Mischaracterization Identification will not only help researchers spot contextual misstatements and omissions in their opponents鈥� or their own quotations and contextual statements faster and with more accuracy, but most importantly it will help them understand why those misstatements or omissions may be problematic. And, spoiler alert: Mischaracterization Identification is just the beginning of how 成人VR视频 will harness the power of generative AI in Quick Check to solve important customer problems.

For more on Mischaracterization Identification, read the press release or check out the by Mike Dahn, head of Westlaw Product Management, 成人VR视频.

Customers will experience a more seamless workflow within CoCounsel 2.0, the professional-grade GenAI assistant, across legal research products, including CoCounsel Core. The deeper integrations, available in late October, will further a user-centric experience throughout the 成人VR视频 legal solutions portfolio and improve ease of use.

The deeper integrations will improve ease of use in two ways:

• The full CoCounsel AI assistant will be available in the user interface of Westlaw and Practical Law, enabling users to be able to use CoCounsel Core skills seamlessly.
• Users will soon be able to create an on-page analysis of Westlaw and Practical Law content with CoCounsel.

In addition, two new GenAI research features 鈥� Mischaracterization Identification and AI Jurisdictional Surveys 鈥� will help customers save substantial time and deliver greater confidence that legal research is accurate, thorough, and complete.

Mischaracterization Identification and AI Jurisdictional Surveys

Mischaracterization Identification is a new generative AI capability to help detect mischaracterizations and omissions in legal briefs. Customers can upload a brief to Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel and see where opposing counsel has mischaracterized the law, and judges using this feature will be able to see where all litigants may have mischaracterized the law in their filings.

鈥淚 often find that opposing counsel has miscited or overstated case authority, and when that happens, we can use it to great advantage with the court.鈥疶his tool would save tons of time in finding those opportunities,鈥� said Scott Matney, general counsel, FPS Inc.

鈥淭his enhancement [Mischaracterization Identification] is one of the most innovative legal tools available,鈥� said Susan Verbonitz, partner, Weir Greenblatt Pierce. 鈥淚t not only reduces time spent on the rinse-and-repeat task associated with human research, but it also identifies potential weaknesses in opponent鈥檚 arguments.鈥�

AI Jurisdictional Surveys on Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel is a generative AI skill that enables customers to do 50-state-survey research much faster than with traditional methods, saving hours of time. It provides relevant statute language for legal questions for each jurisdiction selected for federal and state jurisdictions and U.S. territories.

鈥淭ime is valuable and there is never enough of it,鈥� Verbonitz said. 鈥淎I Jurisdictional Surveys and the new mischaracterizations enhancement expand our research capabilities while also saving us time and reducing cost.鈥�

Read the press release for more on the deeper integrations with CoCounsel and new Westlaw features as well as upcoming product enhancements, including CoCounsel Drafting UK, and more generative AI in Practical Law and Contract Express.