A little over a year ago, ChatGPT-4 was released, and in that short time, the functionality of generative artificial intelligence has been added to many of the tools that we regularly use in our day-to-day workflows. From research and brainstorming to data analysis and translation, generative AI is changing how work gets done.

The legal profession has not been immune from this trend, and legal technology companies have shared news of generative AI plans and releases with increasing frequency since the start of the year. One of the most notable categories of generative AI integration has been legal research, with many established companies embedding it into their platforms.

Generative AI and legal research are a great fit because the large language models utilized by generative AI tools rely on massive datasets to ensure accurate and appropriate responses to inquiries. The internet era has seen the digitization of statutes, regulations and caselaw, thus enabling the training of LLMs for legal research purposes.

However, despite the abundance of training data, generative AI tools are still in their infancy and sometimes provide inaccurate responses, also known as “hallucinations.” Lawyers continue to make the news for utilizing these tools for legal research and submitting documents to courts that contain false case citations.

These errors happen because attorneys fail to review the submissions and blindly rely on the output of generative AI tools. Most often, the tools used in these cases are consumer-based chatbots, such as ChatGPT, which are more prone to hallucination in the legal research context.

For that reason, I recommend that lawyers use only generative AI legal research tools developed by legal tech companies because those providers understand the legal professions’ unique practical and ethical requirements and can reduce the frequency of inaccurate responses.

Given the nascent state of the technology today, even legal-specific products sometimes hallucinate and provide inaccurate outputs.

As a result, you must treat generative AI tools just as you would an entry-level associate and carefully review all responses to ensure their accuracy, including case citations and the cases themselves. The failure to do so violates your competency obligations and could result in professional disciplinary action, court censures or even news headlines. So take advantage of these tools and the savings on time that they offer, but don’t cut corners by ignoring basic ethics rules.

When I last wrote about legal research options in 2019, AI was being used to provide more accurate results, but generative AI was not available.

Now that generative AI is embedded into many legal research products, the challenge becomes sifting through the available options and choosing the right tool for your law firm’s legal research needs. In this article, I’ll highlight many of the products that include generative AI features that are publicly available or in beta.

Choosing a generative AI research tool

Below, I’ll provide a detailed look at some of the leading solutions in the market, including their pricing details when possible. Whether you’re a seasoned legal professional or just beginning to explore the potential of AI in your practice, this overview is designed to equip you with the knowledge needed to make the right choice for your firm.

When choosing a legal research tool, understand that the platforms discussed below are cloud-based. As a result, all your firm’s data will be housed on servers owned by a third party, and the duty of technology competence requires you to vet all technology providers that will be hosting and storing your data. You must fully understand how that company will handle the data; where the servers on which the data will be stored are located; who will have access to it; and how and when it will be backed up, among other things.

Westlaw Precision

Now, let’s explore key considerations when selecting a generative AI legal research tool, starting with Thomson Reuters, which has invested heavily in AI in recent years.

Its legal research tool, Westlaw Precision, now includes generative AI-assisted research that relies on a combination of Microsoft Azure and OpenAI’s commercial API for GPT-4. This functionality was launched publicly in November 2023. With it, users submit research queries, and generative AI-powered responses are provided in narrative form, including footnotes to supporting citations. Responses will sometimes take between 90 seconds to three minutes.

Westlaw Precision pricing is not available on the website.

Lexis+ AI

LexisNexis also offers generative AI legal research functionality via Lexis+ AI, which was launched in October 2023. This tool utilizes several LLMs, including GPT-4 and Anthropic’s Claude 2, depending on the task requested.

Users can conduct legal research, draft documents, seek answers to legal questions, and summarize cases and documents. Responses to queries include linked citations to sources.

Pricing depends on the features and datasets used. And to ensure availability to firms of all sizes, modules for different types of functions—such as drafting or summarizing—can be purchased separately. Pricing is not available on the website.

Paxton AI

Another option to consider is Paxton AI, which is a startup that provides a generative AI legal research tool that also drafts documents and includes contract review features. Coverage includes caselaw, statutes and regulations for all 50 states, including federal data. Research results include links to the cited sources.

Pricing starts with a basic package, the free tier, which only allows a limited number of queries and limited access to statutory and regulatory data. If you’re not a student, pricing for access to all databases without limits starts at $99 per user per month.

Vincent AI

Next up, is vLex’s research assistant, Vincent AI, which was upgraded in October 2023 to include generative AI features available in beta. This tool can be used to create a research memo, build an argument, spot legal issues, draft headnote summaries, conduct a search by uploading a document, and obtain related authorities. It can also be accessed directly in Microsoft Word when drafting a memorandum of law or other documents.

Pricing isn’t available on the website.

Copilot

Finally, another option is LawDroid’s Copilot. Copilot was launched in beta in January 2023 and released publicly last month. With this product, users can conduct legal research using Copilot’s generative AI legal assistant interface. It can also be used to draft, translate and summarize documents.

The cost is $19 per user per month, and a free trial is also available.

When the time is right

Generative AI can be a game-changer for legal research, allowing you to access and analyze information more efficiently than ever.

However, built-in capabilities and costs can vary greatly, so choosing the right tool for your firm isn’t always easy. Given the rapid rate of technological advancements, there’s no better time than now to review your options and learn more about generative AI-powered legal research tools.

Whether you adopt these tools right away or down the road, by obtaining foundational knowledge about this technology, you’ll be better equipped to wisely invest when the time is right.

---

Nicole Black is a Rochester, New York-based attorney, author and journalist, and she is senior director of subject matter expertise and external education at MyCase, a company that offers legal practice management software for small firms. She is the nationally recognized author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers and is co-author of Social Media for Lawyers: The Next Frontier, both published by the American Bar Association. She writes regular columns for ABAJournal.com and Above the Law, has authored hundreds of articles for other publications, and regularly speaks at conferences regarding the intersection of law and emerging technologies. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @nikiblack, or she can be reached at [email protected].

---

This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

Lawyers who expect generative artificial intelligence to significantly impact the practice of law see some of the greatest potential in legal research and writing.

In August, a LexisNexis Legal & Professional study of nearly 8,000 lawyers, law students and consumers in the United States and three other countries found 65% of these professionals believe generative AI tools could assist them in researching matters. Meanwhile, 56% believe the tools could help them draft documents.

Ed Walters, CEO and co-founder of online legal research software company Fastcase, is thrilled by the prospect of making legal research more efficient. Traditionally, researchers would have to come up with keywords and add them to mathematical strings of language that they plug into a search engine. They would then receive a long list of documents and often spend hours reviewing each result to see if it yields their answer.

“This way of doing research is clumsy and slow and often leads to wrong answers,” says Walters, who also became the chief strategy officer of vLex after the legal technology company merged with Fastcase in April.

But now Walters says lawyers could ask AI tools to pull together relevant documents, read them and instantaneously synthesize results for them. In October, his company released a new version of Vincent AI, a legal research assistant that, among other features, allows lawyers to get answers to legal questions with citations and links from verified sources.

He expects that with the advent of GPT-4 and other large language models that interact with vast quantities of text, more of these tools with similar and even expanded capabilities are just on the horizon.

“This generation of tools doesn’t really solve research tasks, but I think they point to a new generation of tools right after this that will, instead of creating statistically likely answers, understand there’s a question being asked and synthesize text to answer the question,” Walters says.

June Hsiao Liebert, the president of the American Association of Law Libraries, agrees that large language models show a lot of promise for improving legal research and writing. She says they are already useful for some steps involved in these tasks, including drafting and editing documents.

“Given how they work, tools utilizing [large language models] can be useful in modeling what the ‘average’ or ‘typical’ solution or document might look like for a particular question, since it essentially predicts words based on what it has been trained on,” says Liebert, the director of information services at the law firm O’Melveny & Myers. “It can also give users different answers depending on the point of view, set of facts or purpose. This ability to model different options can be extremely helpful and time-saving.”

Liebert encourages lawyers who use generative AI to double-check their work but says legal tech companies are making progress in addressing problems with accuracy in available tools.

She anticipates they will continue to investigate and devise solutions for other issues, including authenticity and bias.

“As these tools improve and we become better at using them, [large language models] and other AIs of the future will become just another tool that is available to everyone in the legal industry, not unlike the spell-check tool or even calculators,” Liebert says.

Legal Rebels Class of 2024

Locked in: Criminal justice startups tap into generative AI’s early promise

Bridging the Gap: Lawyers trying to increase access to justice see promise in generative AI

Helping Hand: Generative AI already is making an impact on legal research and writing

Always on: Will generative AI alleviate burnout or make lawyers more miserable?

Head of the Class: Law schools consider post-ChatGPT coursework

e-Sign on the Dotted Line: When it comes to using generative AI and contracts, the devil is in the details

Age of e-Discovery: Generative AI could revolutionize e-discovery—but buyer beware

Rewiring Entry: How AI could blur the borders of immigration law

This story was originally published in the February-March 2024 issue of the ABA Journal.

In This Podcast:

Lawyers who expect generative artificial intelligence to significantly impact the practice of law see some of the greatest potential in legal research and writing.

In August, a LexisNexis Legal & Professional study of nearly 8,000 lawyers, law students and consumers in the United States and three other countries found 65% of these professionals believe generative AI tools could assist them in researching matters. Meanwhile, 56% believe the tools could help them draft documents.

Ed Walters, CEO and co-founder of online legal research software company Fastcase, is thrilled by the prospect of making legal research more efficient. Traditionally, researchers would have to come up with keywords and add them to mathematical strings of language that they plug into a search engine. They would then receive a long list of documents and often spend hours reviewing each result to see if it yields their answer.

“This way of doing research is clumsy and slow and often leads to wrong answers,” says Walters, who also became the chief strategy officer of vLex after the legal technology company merged with Fastcase in April.

But now Walters says lawyers could ask AI tools to pull together relevant documents, read them and instantaneously synthesize results for them. In October, his company released a new version of Vincent AI, a legal research assistant that, among other features, allows lawyers to get answers to legal questions with citations and links from verified sources.

He expects that with the advent of GPT-4 and other large language models that interact with vast quantities of text, more of these tools with similar and even expanded capabilities are just on the horizon.

“This generation of tools doesn’t really solve research tasks, but I think they point to a new generation of tools right after this that will, instead of creating statistically likely answers, understand there’s a question being asked and synthesize text to answer the question,” Walters says.

June Hsiao Liebert, the president of the American Association of Law Libraries, agrees that large language models show a lot of promise for improving legal research and writing. She says they are already useful for some steps involved in these tasks, including drafting and editing documents.

“Given how they work, tools utilizing [large language models] can be useful in modeling what the ‘average’ or ‘typical’ solution or document might look like for a particular question, since it essentially predicts words based on what it has been trained on,” says Liebert, the director of information services at the law firm O’Melveny & Myers. “It can also give users different answers depending on the point of view, set of facts or purpose. This ability to model different options can be extremely helpful and time-saving.”

Liebert encourages lawyers who use generative AI to double-check their work but says legal tech companies are making progress in addressing problems with accuracy in available tools.

She anticipates they will continue to investigate and devise solutions for other issues, including authenticity and bias.

“As these tools improve and we become better at using them, [large language models] and other AIs of the future will become just another tool that is available to everyone in the legal industry, not unlike the spell-check tool or even calculators,” Liebert says.

Legal Rebels Class of 2024

Locked in: Criminal justice startups tap into generative AI’s early promise

Bridging the Gap: Lawyers trying to increase access to justice see promise in generative AI

Helping Hand: Generative AI already is making an impact on legal research and writing

Always on: Will generative AI alleviate burnout or make lawyers more miserable?

Head of the Class: Law schools consider post-ChatGPT coursework

e-Sign on the Dotted Line: When it comes to using generative AI and contracts, the devil is in the details

Age of e-Discovery: Generative AI could revolutionize e-discovery—but buyer beware

Rewiring Entry: How AI could blur the borders of immigration law

This story was originally published in the February-March 2024 issue of the ABA Journal.

In This Podcast:

When states consider law firm ownership and limited law practice by nonlawyers, a common attorney criticism is that such regulation changes will create a tiered legal system that would give an advantage to people represented by lawyers. 

The discussions mostly involve state supreme courts and bar associations and their members, while consumers are rarely invited, says Natalie Anne Knowlton, a Colorado lawyer who spent 14 years with the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, the last six years as director of special projects.  

“Maybe you’d rather have a Toyota than a Mercedes-Benz,” Knowlton says of consumers and legal representation choices. 

Her work for the IAALS, an independent research center housed at the University of Denver, has provided data and reference for states that have overhauled or are considering modifying their unauthorized practice of law regulations to allow for alternative business structures, limited nonlawyer practice or some combination thereof. 

For instance, she helped spearhead Cases Without Counsel, an empirical research study that led to two IAALS publications focused on unrepresented parties in family court. 

Pro se litigants interviewed often thought court staff was reluctant to provide information, while court staff who participated in the study spoke of the difficulties of helping these litigants without giving legal advice,  Knowlton says.

“People don’t understand the line between giving legal advice and information,” she says, adding that consumers often felt everyone working in the court system was saying no to them, which creates tension. “And judges are concerned about how to balance their duty to remain neutral with their duty to dispense justice.”

The pro se litigants also were asked why they did not obtain counsel. Cost was a significant factor, as were experiences with lawyers and a sense they could self-represent, the survey found. 

“We heard from some that getting an attorney in a family law case automatically made them feel that the matter was going to be a lot more formal than it needed to be,”  Knowlton says. “We also heard, ‘I don’t want to drag our kids through this big legal mess, so we’re going to try to do it ourselves.’”

In August, she left the IAALS to co-found Access to Justice Ventures with fellow 2023 Legal Rebel Zachariah DeMeola. Knowlton describes the offering as a “justice ecosystem that prioritizes the public interest above all else, and we want to provide support in both creating that ecosystem and support to those operating in that ecosystem.”

“We intend to make what we know freely accessible through our website, and we are available for more bespoke consulting as well,” she explains. 

 According to her, Access to Justice Ventures’ audience will be legislatures, legal professionals, “law adjacent professionals” and the public. “We can never really speak on behalf of someone else. It is critical that legal consumers have a voice,” she says.

Technology will figure in too. “I want to support tech startups that in some way reach and directly benefit legal consumers,” says Knowlton, 42.

The 2008 graduate of the University of Denver Sturm College of Law initially thought she wanted to do international human rights law. She also has a graduate degree in international studies from the university, and during law school, Knowlton externed with the United Nations’ International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

“When I went to law school, I knew right away I didn’t want to practice law in the traditional sense,” she says. “I was interested in systems and systemic change.”

Legal Rebels Class of 2023

Stacy Butler

Josh Blandi

Zachariah DeMeola

Sonja Ebron and Debra Slone of Courtroom5

Natalie Anne Knowlton

Uzoma Orchingwa and Gabriel Saruhashi of Ameelio

Patrick Palace

Janis C. Puracal

In This Podcast: