was��built for��that��purpose.��

Introducing��CoCounsel��Legal Canada��

​​CoCounsel��Legal Canada is the only comprehensive AI solution for Canadian legal professionals that combines advanced AI capabilities with the authoritative depth of Westlaw content and the applied guidance of Practical Law, in a single integrated solution built for the way legal professionals work. Where other tools address parts of the legal workflow,��CoCounsel��Legal Canada is built to handle the full span of it. The result is faster, more��confident��legal work across research, document analysis, drafting, and organizational��know-how.​��

Here is what that looks like in practice:��

• Research that produces work��product.��Canadian legal professionals have had access to Deep Research on Westlaw Advantage, grounded in authoritative Westlaw content. CoCounsel Legal Canada takes that further. Through CoCounsel Legal Canada, Westlaw and Practical Law now are combined into a single query and response, surfacing answers for the user from both premium content sources. Westlaw’s legal authority and Practical Law’s applied, expert-created guidance surfaces the law and how to use it, moving from question to strategy to execution in a single workflow.�� ��
• Document analysis at��genuine��scale.��Tabular analysis allows legal teams to work through large volumes of documents in ways that weren’t previously feasible without significant resource commitment. Whether the task is due diligence, disclosure review, compliance assessment, or privilege review, CoCounsel Legal Canada surfaces risks across multiple issues simultaneously, links findings to source documents, and generates draft reports. The results are designed to be reviewed and challenged, because that is how legal work functions.��
• Drafting within existing environments.��Enhanced drafting within Microsoft Word allows lawyers to produce high-quality first drafts without leaving the tools they already use, drawing on Practical Law content and their own organizational precedents. The goal is not to replace professional judgment. It is to compress the distance between instruction and a verified, defensible final draft.��
• An expert library.��Access expert-created prompts and create custom prompts designed to help legal professionals get started faster and work with greater confidence. The library accelerates AI adoption across an organization while codifying best practices, so teams can build capability consistently rather than starting from scratch on every matter.��

​​​CoCounsel��Legal Canada integrates with Microsoft 365, leading document management systems, and HighQ, working within the infrastructure Canadian legal practices have already built rather than requiring parallel workflows or new platforms.��​​��

​​​Because the work of legal professionals doesn’t stand still, neither does CoCounsel Legal Canada. Looking further ahead, ����VR��Ƶ will continue to build on its foundation, introducing additional agentic drafting capabilities, ways to enable more efficient lawyer verification of outputs, and next-gen capabilities that respond to a plain-language question by forming a theory and executing a plan at the level of a senior associate, drawing on Westlaw, Practical Law, and firm content throughout the workflow.​​��

“Lawyers don’t want to just operate software, and that’s not what��great��AI should do.��CoCounsel��keeps them in the analytical mindset they were trained for: going back and forth, challenging answers, and steering the work. With sourcing directly from Westlaw and Practical Law,��they’re��not wasting time second-guessing the results.��We’re��seeing adoption from associates to partners across every practice area. When it spreads that quickly, the experience just works.”
— Andrew M. Medeiros, Managing Director of Innovation, Troutman Pepper Locke LLP��

CoCounsel��Legal Canada is built to the standard legal work demands��

Powerful capabilities matter only if professionals can trust the results they produce. Legal work carries liability. Outputs inform advice. Advice affects outcomes. In that environment, “almost right” is not a workable standard.��

​​����VR��Ƶ uses the term Fiduciary-Grade AI��to describe what AI must be��in order to��function reliably in high-stakes professional environments, and it is the architectural foundation of��CoCounsel��Legal Canada.��​��

​​​​It means outputs grounded in authoritative, curated content, not the open internet. It means privacy and security built into the system’s architecture, not layered on as policy. It means transparent, traceable reasoning that a lawyer, client, court, or regulator can examine and challenge. And it means the continuous involvement of credentialed subject-matter experts. ����VR��Ƶ employs thousands of lawyer editors whose work is not incidental to the product’s reliability. It is the product’s reliability.​​​��

“The reality is from what��we’re��seeing out��there,��it’s��not a fair fight right now.��CoCounsel��nailed it in terms of the user interface and making it easy for even non-technical people like me to use.”
— Ian Hull, Co-Founding Partner, Hull & Hull LLP��

The practices built today define the profession tomorrow��

The decisions being made now (the tools adopted, the workflows built, the institutional knowledge developed around how to deploy AI effectively) are the foundations of what Canadian legal practice looks like on the other side of this transition. Getting there successfully means choosing AI built for professional work, not just productivity, and investing in the workflow integration that turns capability into��a competitive��advantage.��

Canada has something valuable to contribute to the global conversation about what responsible AI adoption in regulated professions should look like. A professional culture built on precision, accountability, and trust is not an obstacle to AI adoption. It is the foundation for doing it right. The legal profession has always been defined by the trust placed in it. The practices that move deliberately now will be the ones defining what excellent Canadian legal work looks like in the years ahead.��

CoCounsel��Legal Canada is available now, and��we’re��proud to bring it to the professionals who set that standard.��

Ready to see��CoCounsel��Legal Canada in action?��.��

The exam is widely regarded as one of the hardest professional licensing exams in the United States, with pass rates typically ranging from 30% to as low as 2%. Candidates must navigate thousands of pages of CBP regulations, directives, rulings, and procedures, as well as The Harmonized Tariff Schedule which includes 99 chapters covering every tradable product.

The results reflect ����VR��Ƶ commitment to Fiduciary-Grade AI^TM – built to meet a higher standard than general productivity tools, to stand up to scrutiny and with outputs that are reliable and verifiable.

Embedded within the existing ONESOURCE Global Trade Management platform, Global Trade Research AI represents a significant development in trade compliance technology. Demonstrating advanced regulatory reasoning, document-based reasoning at scale, and complex synthesis of multiple sources to help with trade-based research tasks. Unlike general-purpose AI tools, the system is trained on over 100,000 pages of authoritative government sources, including Federal Register notices, CBP CSMS messages, and executive orders.

Meeting Strategic Demands in Trade Compliance
The launch comes as trade departments experience unprecedented elevation within their organizations. According to ����VR��Ƶ 2026 , 43% of trade professionals report increased budgets for hiring, while 37% report more frequent involvement in executive decision-making.

“Trade teams are being asked to become strategic partners rather than operational functionaries,” said Ray Grove, head of product, Global Tax and Trade, ����VR��Ƶ. “They need tools that can provide instant, accurate regulatory intelligence to support real-time business decisions.”

The shift reflects broader changes in how organizations view trade compliance. More than three-quarters of legal trade professionals (76%) believe current U.S. tariff approaches represent a permanent change rather than temporary policy tools, according to the report.

And, it reflects growing enterprise adoption of specialized AI tools for professional services. Unlike consumer-focused AI applications, Global Trade Research AI is purpose-built for regulatory compliance workflows and trained exclusively on verified government sources rather than web-scraped content.

Technical Capabilities and Accuracy
Global Trade Research AI processes natural language queries such as “What are the current tariff rates for HTS 8708.29 from Mexico vs. China?” or “What FTA benefits apply to automotive parts from Mexico?”�� The system synthesizes information across multiple regulatory sources and provides cited responses within seconds.

Key technical features include:

• Authoritative sourcing: Every response includes citations linking to primary government documents
• Real-time updates: Knowledge base refreshes as regulations change, with average update times under one business day
• Trade-specific intelligence: Understands HTS codes, duty drawback procedures, customs warehouse operations, and FTA rules
• Integrated platform: Embedded directly within ONESOURCE Global Trade Management workflow
• The system’s performance across 18 runs of the CBP licensing exam – spanning three years of changing tariff policy, demonstrates consistent ability to handle complex regulatory scenarios that typically require extensive professional training.

This is Fiduciary-Grade AI in practice: every answer is traceable, every source is authoritative, and the system is built to support decisions where being wrong carries real professional and financial consequence. Trade professionals can access Global Trade Research AI through their existing ONESOURCE Global Trade Management platform, maintaining workflow continuity while adding AI-powered research capabilities.

A ����VR��Ƶ customer, Crowe is one of the largest public accounting and consulting firms in the United States. The firm’s decision to add Additive to its technology stack reflects both an immediate opportunity to enhance K-1 processing and a larger commitment to building a more connected, data-driven tax operation supported by modern AI tools.

For tax professionals, the challenge of ingesting and processing K-1 documents is often highly manual, time-intensive, and dependent on spreadsheet-based workflows that can slow down downstream processes during compressed compliance cycles. Additive addresses that challenge by using a GenAI-native platform to ingest and structure data from complex K-1 documents efficiently and at scale. That structured output then feeds into Crowe’s downstream partnership calculation engines and connects with other solutions across the firm’s technology ecosystem, including .

Before making its decision, Crowe conducted a rigorous cross-functional pilot of Additive across its tax practice, bringing in specialists from international, private equity, state and local, and global and high-net-worth individual tax services. The pilot helped validate not only the platform’s ability to automate complex data extraction, but also its potential to improve the quality, speed, and consistency of service delivery across multiple tax disciplines.

“The biggest advantage of Additive is how it helps us better support our clients,” said Jeffrey Mull, Partner, Crowe. “By turning complex, unstructured K-1 data into usable information more efficiently, our teams can spend less time on manual aggregation and more time focused on analysis, insights, and getting clients the answers they need, especially during compressed compliance timelines.”

For Crowe, the value of Additive extends beyond solving a single workflow issue. As tax practices become more digital and data-intensive, firms need technology that fits into real professional workflows, works across systems, and helps experienced practitioners spend more of their time where expertise matters most. The firm sees modern AI tools as an important part of how it will continue to innovate and deliver strong client outcomes in an increasingly complex environment.

“Having access to the latest technology is essential to how we continue to innovate and deliver value to our clients,” Mull added. “From an AI transformation perspective, modern tools like Additive help us unlock the value of our data in new ways, improving how we analyze information and generate insights. It also reinforces our commitment to innovation, ensuring that we are not only keeping pace with change but actively shaping how technology is used to improve the client experience.”

For ����VR��Ƶ, Crowe’s adoption of Additive reflects a broader shift underway in the profession. Firms are increasingly looking for AI solutions that move beyond experimentation and solve practical operational challenges while strengthening the quality of professional work.

“Leading firms are looking for AI solutions that fit into real workflows and deliver measurable impact,” said Erica Butcher, General Manager of Tax, Audit & Accounting Professionals at ����VR��Ƶ. “Crowe’s adoption of Additive shows how firms can take a focused, practical approach to using AI to improve how work gets done and strengthen client outcomes.”

Fiduciary‑Grade AI is ����VR��Ƶ standard for how AI should work in high‑stakes professions. It’s AI designed for professionals with duties of care and regulatory oversight – drawing on our authoritative, domain‑specific content; protected by rigorous privacy and security safeguards; shaped by subject‑matter experts; and designed to produce transparent outputs that can be verified.

Almost Right is Not Good Enough��

Before professionals operating in high-precision fields can fully embrace deeper AI integration into their everyday workflows, they need to know that the AI they are using stands up to scrutiny and that its outputs are reliable and verifiable.

For generations, professional trust has been defined by standards, certification, and fiduciary duty. When someone carries a designation like CPA in accounting or JD in legal, we understand both their qualifications and the obligations that govern how they must act. If we expect AI to start to take on more meaningful shares of human time, then as we assess a human’s fitness for purpose for a job, we must also validate an AI’s fitness for purpose.

High Stakes Professional Work Requires a Different Standard

In regulated professions that prioritize accuracy, accountability, and trust, AI must be built to a Fiduciary-Grade standard. That means real, factual, authoritative sources, traceable reasoning, and transparent outputs that are ready for human review and verification under professional and regulatory expectations.

As AI takes on more responsibility in completing professional work, it does not assume any additional accountability. That accountability remains entirely human. Professionals remain responsible for the judgments made, the advice delivered, and the outcomes that follow. Fiduciary- Grade AI is designed to support human judgment, not replace it, by producing work that can be examined, explained, and defended under real-world professional and regulatory scrutiny.

The Four Principles of Fiduciary-Grade AI��

Fiduciary‑Grade AI is defined not just by what it produces, but by what it is allowed to access, retain, and rely upon in generating outputs that inform professional judgment.

AI grounded in authority; with access to the right context.
A Fiduciary-Grade AI system must derive its substantive outputs from authoritative, curated, and domain-specific content, not just information scraped from the open internet, while also operating with the full context required to complete professional work. Every material output must be traceable to a source that a qualified professional can independently locate, cite, verify, and trust. And only when AI agents can access, know, and act on the specific data, knowledge, systems, and tools can they complete the complex, multi-step tasks that professional work demands.

Data privacy and security are imperative.
Where privacy is paramount, Fiduciary‑Grade AI is built to protect it. Privacy and security must be structural features of the system’s architecture, not policy overlays or configurable options.

Built with human expertise, not just human oversight.
Professional workflows must be designed, tested, and continuously refined with meaningful involvement from credentialed subject matter experts in the relevant professional domain. When ambiguity or risk arises, the system must recognize its limits and bring professionals back in rather than generating an output that overstates its reliability, keeping accountability human and outcomes defensible. Fiduciary-Grade AI requires that customers have access to real-time human support to ensure transparency and trust.

Transparent, verifiable reasoning.
By clearly surfacing and referencing the sources it relies on, AI must be able to provide a reviewable trail of what the system did and what it relied on, sufficient to allow a qualified professional, and, where applicable, a regulator, court, or auditor – to evaluate the basis for the output and determine whether the result is reliable and defensible. Making each step in its planning, reasoning, and execution process visible to the user is vital to helping young professionals learn and grow.

This is the standard we build to at ����VR��Ƶ, and the standard delivered through CoCounsel for legal, tax, audit, and compliance professionals. As AI moves deeper into regulated work, the defining question is no longer whether a system can generate an answer – it’s whether professionals can verify and stand behind the result.

Nowhere is that truer than in Section 101 patent eligibility, one of the most consequential and frustrating challenges in patent practice today, and the problem that brought and ����VR��Ƶ together to build something new inside CoCounsel Legal.��

Why��Section��101? Why Now?��

Section 101 patent eligibility is a question at the center of most��utility��patent disputes today. It is often a decisive factor in patent litigation, and one of the quickest ways to win or lose a case. The legal test asks whether a��technical��invention is the kind of subject matter the patent system protects, meaning it must be more than a general idea and must��represent��a concrete, technical improvement.��

��In theory, the framework is clear. In practice, it is anything but:��

• Key concepts lack precise definitions, leaving��wide��room��for interpretation.����
• The analysis is deeply precedent-dependent, and��outcomes hinge on finding the right prior cases among hundreds of fact-specific��decisions.��Missing a key precedent can mean the difference between��a strong argument��and a weak one.��

And all of this unfolds under constant pressure. Clients need answers��fast;��matters are often fixed-fee, and the uncertainty is genuinely difficult to explain.��

For patent owners seeking to assert a patent, understanding its vulnerability under Section 101 is essential before litigation begins.��For defendants, a fast, reliable eligibility assessment can reveal a path to an early win.��For both sides, the current reality often looks the same: assign a��junior associate to research similar cases, spend hours or sometimes days finding the right precedents, and still wonder whether something important was missed.��

This is the kind of problem that demands a fiduciary-grade solution:��one built not��for the average task, but��for the specific, high-stakes reality of patent practice.��

Unmatched IP Expertise, Delivered at Scale��

The��Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer��was not built by technologists who then consulted practitioners. It was built with practitioners at the center of every decision — and with a caliber of technical��expertise��on both sides that distinction shapes everything about what the��Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer��can do.��

����VR��Ƶ engaged Sterne Kessler through a��forward deployed engineering motion, a model that pairs engineers who combine strong legal backgrounds with deep AI and technical��expertise��and��embeds them directly alongside practitioners.��The Thomson��Reuters��engineering team worked side by side with Sterne Kessler’s IP litigators to deeply understand their workflows, co-build the solution in rapid iterations, and move with��speed and flexibility.����

The result is a��tool��shaped by the kind of tight, trust-based collaboration that only happens when both sides bring genuine depth to the table.��

Sterne Kessler brings decades of litigation-tested intellectual property��expertise��to this partnership. The firm worked alongside ����VR��Ƶ’ engineers and editorial teams to translate the way experienced IP��practitioners��approach Section 101 — their analytical frameworks, their precedent instincts, their litigation-proven methodologies — into a repeatable, scalable workflow now inside��CoCounsel��Legal.��

That meant curating��an initial��corpus of approximately 200 highly relevant Federal Circuit Section 101��decisions,��cases selected not by keyword, but by their factual and analytical relevance to the kinds of claims practitioners��encounter��in real matters. ����VR��Ƶ editorial teams then reviewed and augmented that corpus, applying the same editorial rigor that underpins Westlaw.��

The result is a workflow grounded in practitioner intelligence, trusted legal content,��and engineering��— combined at a depth that general-purpose AI��tools simply cannot replicate.��

Built��for Real IP Work

The��Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer��reflects how IP work is��actually done.

How the��Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer��Works

1. Enter a patent claim: Select the��Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer in��CoCounsel��Legal and paste a claim directly into the chat.
2. CoCounsel applies the same Step 1 / Step 2 logic that courts use:��The��Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer��structures the analysis the way judges do, first asking whether the claim is directed to a general or abstract idea, then whether it adds a meaningful technical improvement.
3. CoCounsel finds the most relevant court decisions for that specific claim: Using semantic analysis rather than keyword search,��the��Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer��matches the claim to prior Section 101 cases with similar fact patterns, so practitioners surface the right cases, not just the most��frequently��cited ones.
4. It draws from a curated corpus built by Sterne Kessler and ����VR��Ƶ editors: The workflow leverages an initial set of approximately 200 highly relevant Section 101 cases, curated by Sterne Kessler and reviewed and augmented by ����VR��Ƶ editorial teams.
5. It explains why each cited case matters: Rather than listing citations, CoCounsel provides reasoning that connects the claim’s language to the reasoning and outcomes in those cases, giving practitioners a litigation-ready foundation, not just a list of results.
6. Citations link directly to Westlaw: Every source is verifiable. Practitioners can validate citations and continue deeper research as needed, maintaining full accountability for the final work product.

The��Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer��surfaces both binding and persuasive authority when factually relevant, reflecting how Section 101 arguments are��actually made��in practice.��The goal is not to replace attorney judgment. It is to give attorneys a faster, more consistent, more defensible foundation from which to exercise it, so less time is spent on the research��phase��and more time is spent on strategy, client counsel, and the work that requires human��expertise.��

For patent owners, that means a stronger, faster assessment of a patent’s eligibility risk before litigation begins.��For defendants, it means a rapid, precedent-backed read on Section 101 positions from the outset of a case.��

For both, it means a head start on brief writing, a more consistent work product across matters and experience levels, and greater confidence that no key precedent has been missed.��

A New Model��for Legal Product Innovation��

Beyond the��Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer��itself, this partnership��represents��something worth examining at a higher level: a fundamentally different model for how legal AI products can and should be built.��

While��building useful legal technology has always required thinking like a lawyer,��the traditional approach to legal technology development��across the industry��follows a familiar pattern. Technologists��identify��a problem, build a solution, and bring it to��market. Practitioners are consulted��but they are��largely recipients��of the finished product.��Expertise��flows in one direction.��

This partnership inverts that model. Sterne Kessler did not simply advise on the��Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer, they co-developed it, inspired by the firm’s practical methodologies for Section 101.

What began as a co-development initiative has evolved into a scalable market offering available to patent practitioners across CoCounsel Legal. In doing so, it has demonstrated what is possible when practitioners and technologists collaborate.��

That model also opens new possibilities��for how law firms think about their own��expertise. Firms are��evolving��the ways they create value from their knowledge, and this partnership is an example of what it looks like when a firm’s internal intelligence becomes a repeatable, scalable offering.��

CoCounsel��Legal’s architecture��is��designed to enable exactly this kind of��forward-deployed, domain-specific innovation, making it possible to translate specialized��expertise��into scalable, trusted AI experiences. The��Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer��is the first proof point.��

Additional co-developed workflows are already in development, with the ambition of bringing the same practitioner-built, precedent-grounded approach to other complex areas of patent law, signaling what is possible across specialized legal domains where expertise is the differentiator and where the stakes are��too��high��for approximation.��

The Standard the Profession Deserves��

What makes the��Patent Claim Eligibility Analyzer��meaningful is not just what it does. It is the standard it was built to. Every output is grounded in a curated, editorially reviewed body of case law. Every citation links to a verifiable Westlaw source.��The analytical structure mirrors the reasoning courts��actually apply.��And the workflow is explicitly designed to support attorney judgment, not substitute for it.��

That is��fiduciary-grade AI. It is��not a general-purpose��tool��adapted��for legal work, but a purpose-built solution grounded in authoritative content, shaped by the��expertise��of practitioners who��perform��this work at the highest level, and accountable to the professional standards that patent practice demands.��

The ����VR��Ƶ and Sterne Kessler partnership was built on that standard. And as the collaboration deepens and expands, it is the standard we��will��keep.��

In law, starting work has never been a constraint. Finishing it accurately, defensibly, and at a professional standard is. We are already seeing that distinction begin to shape how this market is evolving. While AI is expanding where work begins whether that’s in a general-purpose AI tool, an email, or inside a document workflow, it is not the system that can stand behind the result. In practice, the control point in legal AI is not the interface where work is initiated. It is the system where that work is validated, grounded, and completed.

AI can now draft, summarize, and analyze in seconds. This is changing how legal work begins. But legal work does not end with a draft. It ends when someone can put their name on it. That requires outputs to be grounded in authoritative sources, validated for accuracy, and traceable back to their origin. These are system-level requirements.

There is a growing narrative that AI will replace enterprise systems. What’s actually emerging is a separation of roles: AI is where work begins; professional systems are where it is executed, validated, and completed. AI assistants are becoming the place where work begins, while professional systems are where that work is executed, validated, and completed. These roles are complementary, but not equal. The layer where work begins is broad, fast-moving, and increasingly interchangeable. In practice, the layer where work is completed is where trust and accountability sit. It is also where meaningful differentiation shows up, because that is the layer responsible for producing outputs professionals can stand behind. Trust is built into the architecture, including the content, the validation, and the way outputs are produced.

As AI becomes embedded across more tools and environments, work can start almost anywhere. The question is where it resolves, and what system ensures it is right. Our expanded partnership with Anthropic, as outlined in our recent announcement, reflects how this is starting to take shape. , connecting that work directly into professional systems helps ensure it carries through to completion with the rigor required in professional settings. This is less about embedding a system into every interface and more about ensuring that wherever work begins, it can be completed in systems designed to stand behind the result.

The most advanced legal organizations are already operating this way. They use general-purpose AI to accelerate early thinking and exploration, and professional systems to complete high-stakes work. This is already happening in firms like . The pattern is not that AI replaces the system, but that the two now perform distinct and complementary roles. AI is not replacing the system. It is changing how work flows into it.

As this architecture evolves, the distinction between where work starts and where it finishes is becoming more important, not less. Work will begin everywhere, but it will not finish everywhere. When that validation layer is missing, the consequences are already visible, from hallucinated citations to filings that cannot withstand scrutiny. Systems that can validate it, ground it in authoritative content, and make it defensible in real professional contexts. The next generation of CoCounsel Legal, now in beta, reflects this shift, with customers increasingly relying on it to complete workflows end to end.

“The new version of CoCounsel is now one of the first tools I turn to when I want to get work done. Where I once used CoCounsel for specific tasks, I now start nearly everything with it.”
— Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox PLLC

The next phase of this market is unlikely to be defined by who helps professionals start work fastest. It will be defined by who enables them to finish it with confidence.

Womble Bond Dickinson UK’s early adoption of CoCounsel Legal, ����VR��Ƶ advanced fiduciary-grade AI platform for legal professionals, has become a case study in what firmwide AI integration looks like. It required vision, discipline, creative leadership, and a partnership built on radical candor.��

Setting the Stage��

CoCounsel��Legal integrates advanced AI with Westlaw and Practical Law content, as well as a firm’s own knowledge and tools, to support the full breadth of legal work—including research, document analysis, and drafting—in a single platform. When Womble Bond Dickinson��committed��to��early adoption, the platform was still in development.��Which��was precisely the point.��

What began as an evaluation of the original��CoCounsel��product evolved into a sweeping, full-scale early adoption initiative, spanning 7 of Womble Bond Dickinson’s UK offices and all 650��timekeepers (including 457 qualified lawyers)��working in��them. The goal was not simply to make the tool available. It was to make it indispensable, transforming AI use from an occasional experiment into a daily professional habit.��

Sam Dixon, Chief Innovation Officer and Partner, led the charge. His vision was anchored in a clear strategic ambition��the firm already had in place: a self-service innovation model in which every lawyer across the business has innovation as part of their role.��CoCounsel��Legal, with its intuitive interface and enterprise-wide applicability, was the right tool at the right moment to��help��make that vision real.��

A Partnership Built on Candor��

What set this initiative apart from a conventional technology rollout was the nature of the relationship between Womble Bond Dickinson and ����VR��Ƶ. It was a co-development partnership defined by openness, mutual accountability, and a shared commitment to getting it right.��

From the outset, both teams committed to saying the quiet parts out loud. When something wasn’t working, they said so. When feedback was uncomfortable, it was shared anyway. Womble Bond Dickinson stress-tested CoCounsel Legal’s capabilities, challenged its assumptions, and provided structured, direct feedback throughout the development process. ����VR��Ƶ listened, iterated, and acted. As a result, the firm’s input directly shaped the product before launch, a level of influence that reflects genuine partnership, not merely consultation.��

That bidirectional feedback loop ran throughout the project. The joint team, spanning Womble Bond Dickinson’s innovation and legal technology functions and ����VR��Ƶ sales, customer success, and product teams, built in multiple touchpoints for sharing insights, surfacing issues, and refining both the product and the rollout approach. Challenges became collaborative problem-solving moments rather than blockers.��

The pilot group itself was carefully constructed to reflect the full diversity of the firm: across practice areas, job roles, seniority levels, technology comfort levels, and demographic backgrounds. This��wasn’t��a pilot of the��willing. It was a deliberate, representative sample designed to surface real-world adoption challenges before the firmwide launch.��

Bringing the Whole Firm Along��

Rather than relying on emails, slide decks, and vendor-led training sessions, Womble Bond Dickinson took a different approach. Sam Dixon travelled to��each of the firm’s 7��staffed��UK offices��and personally led 35��introduction��and training sessions for��CoCounsel��Legal, a campaign that became affectionately known as “Cocoa with��CoCo.” In the middle of a British summer, he served hot chocolate, sat down with colleagues, and walked them through the platform himself.����

It’s��the��kind of visible, lead-by-example��behavior��that research shows��makes��a real difference.��According to the��2025 ����VR��Ƶ Future of Professionals Report,��professionals who agree that leaders in their��organization��consistently lead by example are 1.7x more likely to be experiencing benefits from AI than those who disagree.��

The sessions were part of a broader, multimodal training program that included use-case specific meetings, pre-recorded leadership conversations reinforcing responsible use, and one-to-one engagement on the floor. Sam didn’t wait for questions to come to him. He walked the offices, asked people directly whether they had used CoCounsel Legal, and if they hadn’t, asked why not. That kind of visible, personal commitment created a ripple effect across the firm.��

The training program also served as a real-time risk management mechanism. Face-to-face conversations surfaced misconceptions early, allowing the team to refine their messaging on the spot. One recurring insight was around Deep Research in Westlaw Advantage, a key capability of CoCounsel Legal that delivers comprehensive legal research in 10 to 15 minutes, the kind of work that might otherwise occupy a lawyer for an entire day.��

Results That Speak for Themselves��

The impact on the quality and efficiency of legal work��at Womble Bond Dickinson��has been significant.��CoCounsel��Legal is now used regularly across practice areas, supporting work that spans��almost the��full breadth of what lawyers do, from legal research to document analysis to drafting.����

The platform delivers up to 80% efficiency gains on specific tasks, enables junior lawyers to contribute more meaningfully at an earlier career stage, and accelerates client turnaround across the firm.��

A Model for the Industry��

This initiative has not gone unnoticed. Womble Bond Dickinson and ����VR��Ƶ were recently��recognized��with the��.��

As Sam��Dixon reflected on the decision to commit to early adoption of a product still in development: “It was the vision for the product and where I thought it would go and what I thought its advantages were over competitors. If I didn’t believe in��the������VR��Ƶ vision for the product, I couldn’t��have believed��it fit into our vision for the firm’s AI adoption ambitions.”��

“Womble Bond Dickinson exemplifies what it means to lead in the AI era. Sam Dixon and his team didn’t just deploy fiduciary-grade AI, they embedded it into the culture of the firm, making it a natural part of how every lawyer works. That kind of leadership is what separates firms that experiment with AI from those that truly use it to transform how they work,” said Raghu Ramanathan, President of Legal Professionals, ����VR��Ƶ.��

The��trust��between Womble Bond Dickinson and ����VR��Ƶ, and trust in the product, has been��earned through transparency, delivered through partnership, and validated through results. That is the real story here. Womble Bond Dickinson didn’t wait for AI to be perfect before committing. They helped make it better. And in doing so, they built something more valuable than a technology deployment: a firm-wide culture in which AI is not a novelty, but a natural part of how every lawyer works.��

Lawyers have always been accountable for their work. That was true before AI, and it is just as true now. A brief carries your name. An argument carries your judgment. A citation carries your reputation. None of that changes because an AI tool helped you produce it faster.��

That’s��why when firms talk about adopting AI for legal work, the first question��shouldn’t��be about speed or cost savings. It should be: can I��actually verify��what this produces? If you��can’t��trace an output back to its source, check whether that source is still good law, and inspect the reasoning that connected the two, you��don’t��have work product. You have a draft you��can’t��stand behind.��

That standard is not new.��What’s��new is how many lawyers are finding out the hard way that the AI tools they adopted��weren’t��built with it in mind.��

Courts across the United States have now sanctioned attorneys for��submitting��briefs with fabricated citations, false quotes, and mischaracterized precedent — all generated by AI and not verified by the attorneys. When those tools are built on content scraped from the web rather than authoritative legal sources��maintained��by practicing attorneys, the risk of error is structural. The AI has no way to know whether a case is still good law, whether a statute has been amended, or whether a citation��actually supports��the argument��it’s��being used to make. Verification becomes difficult not because the tools��don’t��show their work, but because the underlying sources��can’t��be trusted in the first place.��

At��Thomson��Reuters,��we��understand��that lawyers��don’t��just need to find the law — they need to be able to stand behind what they find.��We’ve��always built Westlaw��and Practical Law��with that in mind, and��it’s��the same principle we carried into CoCounsel Legal from the very beginning.��

Built for Verification at Every Stage��

When we designed CoCounsel Legal, we started from a simple premise: a lawyer should be able to verify everything the AI produces before putting their name on it. That meant building��tools that give attorneys everything they need to do that��verification��themselves,��at every stage of the workflow.��

As the research unfolds,��Deep Research��shows you its work in real time, step by step. You can follow the reasoning as it develops,��explore��findings as they��emerge, and��refine��the research with more specificity��by answering��additional��questions.����

As citations are built, two things work in parallel.��KeyCite��is woven into every stage of the research workflow, flagging cases overruled in part, warning of proposed amendments to statutes, and surfacing cases that are��frequently��cited together even when they��don’t��cite each other. Alongside it,��CoCounsel Legal’s patent-pending citation ledger��tracks every source the AI draws on throughout the research process and confirms that each source was��actually read��and reviewed — not just referenced.��Together, they give attorneys what they need to��answer the question��that��should��precede every citation��they rely on: does this hold up?��

Before anything goes out, two more layers of review engage.��The Verify function, launched in February 2026, surfaces every assertion made in the research report alongside the relevant source passages and pointers for��additional��research — giving attorneys everything they need to��verify��before anything goes out the door.��Litigation Document Analyzer��goes further��by��identifying��potential misrepresentations of law throughout an entire brief, your own or opposing counsel’s. Because in litigation, what a document implies about the law matters just as much as what it explicitly says.��

Every one of these capabilities exists for the same reason: because when you use AI to do legal work, you are still the one responsible for it.����

The Question Every Lawyer Should Be Asking��

Not all legal AI is built the same way.��Some tools are little more than general-purpose foundation models with a legal label applied — with little ability to confirm whether the underlying sources are current, authoritative, or accurately represented in the answer.��They can be fast. They can be impressive in a demo. But when a client’s matter is on the line and a judge is asking questions, impressive in a demo is not the standard that matters.��

At ����VR��Ƶ,��fiduciary‑grade��AI is our standard for how AI should work in��high‑stakes professions.����It’s AI designed for professionals – built on our authoritative content; protected by rigorous privacy and security safeguards; shaped and validated by subject‑matter��experts; and designed to produce transparent outputs that can be verified.����

We’ve spent decades earning the trust of the legal profession. That history shaped how we built CoCounsel Legal. When your firm is evaluating which AI tools to adopt, the conversation about speed and efficiency matters. But it shouldn’t be the only conversation. Ask how the system handles accuracy. Ask what happens when you need to trace an output back to its source. Ask whether you can actually verify what it produces before your name goes on it. Those questions will tell you everything you need to know about whether a tool was built for legal work or just marketed to it.��

Lawyers have always been accountable for what they put their names on. The right AI gives you the tools to meet that accountability — and the confidence to know you have.

Additionally,��Rawia Ashraf, Head of Product,��CoCounsel��Transactional & GCOs,��was named��one of ILTA’s 2026 Influential Women in Legal Tech honorees, recognition that reflects her contributions at the intersection of AI and legal work.��Samantha Delaney, Senior Solution Consultant, AI Specialist��was also recognized, winning��the Young Professionals to Watch Award.��

Solution Provider of the Year��

The Solution Provider of the Year Award recognizes technology providers that have demonstrated exceptional partnership and transformational impact within the legal industry. ����VR��Ƶ earned this recognition for CoCounsel Legal, which has redefined what fiduciary-grade AI looks like in legal practice.��

CoCounsel��Legal brings together legal research from Westlaw, practical guidance from Practical Law, and AI-powered document analysis and drafting, all within a single platform. One million professionals across 107 countries and territories have access to��CoCounsel, the foundational technology underpinning��CoCounsel��Legal.����

The impact CoCounsel Legal is having across the legal industry speaks for itself. Legal professionals report dramatic efficiency gains, with tasks that once took eight or nine hours now completed in one to two hours.��The quality of work has improved too, with lawyers gaining confidence in the thoroughness and accuracy of��its��outputs.��

There have been��big benefits, given CoCounsel Legal can complete full workflows.��

Firms are taking on more clients, expanding into new practice areas, and competing more effectively against larger, better-resourced competitors.��Across the board,��CoCounsel��Legal is not just saving time; it is fundamentally changing what legal teams are capable of.��

Trailblazer Award��

The Trailblazer Award, shared by ����VR��Ƶ and��, recognized the two organizations’ early adoption initiative as a model for responsible, enterprise-scale AI deployment.��

Womble Bond Dickinson is a full-service��international��law firm, and in��2025, they��partnered with ����VR��Ƶ to roll out��CoCounsel��Legal��to 650��timekeepers (including 457��qualified lawyers)��across all 7 of its��staffed��UK offices, ahead��of its launch to the UK market.��The initiative spanned a rigorous evaluation phase, a strategically constructed pilot group, and a rollout anchored by an executive-led training initiative.��

The firm notes that its lawyers are consistently choosing to use��CoCounsel��Legal every month, and that it is delivering real value across the organization.��

Rawia Ashraf, Head of Product,��CoCounsel��Transactional & GCOs,��named one of ILTA’s 2026 Influential Women in Legal Tech Honorees��

Rawia Ashraf was named one of ILTA’s 2026 Influential Women in Legal Tech honorees, recognition that reflects her broader contributions��to��legal technology.��Rawia��has��been instrumental in accelerating responsible AI adoption and driving��measurable outcomes across the legal industry, and her work on CoCounsel��Legal exemplifies the kind of product innovation the honor is designed to celebrate.��

Formerly an��antitrust attorney focusing on civil and criminal antitrust litigation��at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett,��Rawia��joined ����VR��Ƶ in 2013.��She��was responsible for��leading the integration of��the��$650 million acquisition of��Casetext��into ����VR��Ƶ. Additionally, she led the build and launch of��CoCounsel��Drafting as well as the development of the next generation of��CoCounsel��Legal, now in beta.��

Samantha Delaney, Senior Solution Consultant, AI Specialist wins��Young Professionals to Watch Award��

Samantha Delaney��won��the Young Professionals��to Watch��Award, which��recognizes��rising young professionals in the legal technology industry.��Her inclusion on this list��is��due��to her��demonstrated��steady growth, strong technical capability, and an insightful approach to supporting her colleagues and customers.��

Samantha is currently also��Adjunct Professor of AI and Technology��at��Osgoode��Hall Law School, and prior to joining ����VR��Ƶ��was a Senior Innovation Advisor at Norton Rose Fulbright, driving strategic adoption of emerging technologies across the��firm.��

These��awards��reflect Thomson��Reuters��continued commitment to building AI that meets the��highest standards of the legal profession and the people��leading��that work.��This work will continue with the launch of��the��next generation of��CoCounsel��Legal��in September.������

��