In a bold move embracing artificial intelligence, Thomson Reuters is integrating generative AI into its legal research platform, Westlaw Precision. The introduction of this feature signifies considerable advancements within the legal technology realm. Moreover, enhancements within another of its platforms, Practical Law, are also being made, as it releases two innovative, AI-driven tools.
Back in November, Thomson Reuters announced its plans to integrate generative AI within Westlaw Precision. Simultaneously, it unveiled the beta version of the AI-powered feature in Practical Law. The time has now come for Thomson Reuters to officially release these developments.
The first, titled Ask Practical Law AI, provides users with a chat interface that they can use to access Practical Law content. By simply posing a question, the user receives a summary answer, synthesized from Practical Law content. Their questions can be further refined through follow-up queries. The second tool, called Practical Law Clause Finder, is geared towards aiding users in locating relevant contract clauses. Both tools will be accessible to Practical Law customers in the United States who hold a dynamic tool set subscription, with plans to extend availability to international customers later this year.
Both tools are underpinned by cutting-edge AI technology and tie into the trustworthy content and expertise of Practical Law. Thomson Reuters is optimistic that these tools will usher in a new era of expediency and accuracy for the platform’s users.
One of the key figures behind the development of these tools, Erica Kitaev, Vice President of Product Management at Thomson Reuters, spoke about the advances in a recent demonstration. “They’re both built on advanced AI technology and both grounded in trusted Practical Law content and expertise,” Kitaev explained.
In a practical demonstration, users simply ask a question via the chat interface of Ask Practical Law AI, and the tool provides a summary answer synthesized from Practical Law, incorporating links to the sources within PL on which it based its response. The tool’s answers are supplemented with a continuous discovery process, allowing users to easily validate those answers. Kitaev notes that users can ask up to seven follow-up questions, although she has yet to see users venturing this far into the query process.
As for the Practical Law Clause Finder, the tool operates within Microsoft Word, using supervised learning AI, trained by PL editors, to classify contract language and to extract the most commonly negotiated clauses in transactional agreements. It can access content from PL, SEC documents, or even a customer’s internal documents. From within Word, users first select the category of clause from Clause Finder’s taxonomy, narrow it to a subcategory, and then can browse clauses from PL, the SEC database or their own documents.
Clauses obtained from Practical Law include drafting notes written by expert attorneys that guide the user in drafting and editing that clause. Users can also view recommended clauses in context within their source documents, and easily navigate between their own versions of the documents. Moreover, customers can opt to include their own documents within the Clause Finder tool, creating their own knowledge repositories accessible only to their internal users. These documents are stored securely on a single-tenant cloud instance.
Kitaev shows palpable enthusiasm about the potential of these latest additions to the Thomson Reuters suite of tools. “We’re really excited about the future of drafting here at Thomson Reuters,” Kitaev said. “Clause Finder really is an exciting first step in executing against that drafting vision.”