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20 February 2024

Thomson Reuters Launches CoCounsel Core, Legal GenAI Assistant, in Canada and Australia

  • Generative AI to empower lawyers. CoCounsel Core delivers generative AI skills tailored to accelerate, streamline and improve legal workflows.
  • Follows successful US deployment. A comprehensive rollout “playbook” has been proven with 45 large US law firms employing more than 50,000 lawyers.

TORONTO, February 20, 2024 – Thomson Reuters (TSX/NYSE: TRI), a global content and technology company, today continues the rapid execution of its AI technology strategy by making CoCounsel Core available in Canada and Australia. These are the first of the English-speaking international markets the generative AI legal assistant will be rolled out to, less than three months after the launch of CoCounsel Core to Thomson Reuters customers. This significant milestone further demonstrates the technology leader’s commitment to and progress toward transforming the way legal professionals work—efforts that continue to accelerate, driven by Thomson Reuters “build, buy, partner” strategy.

CoCounsel Core, introduced in the United States last year, equips today’s customers with eight generative AI-powered core legal skills, including Prepare for a Deposition, Draft Correspondence, Search a Database, Review Documents, Summarize a Document, Extract Contract Data, Contract Policy Compliance and Timeline. Together with AI-Assisted Research on Westlaw Precision and Ask Practical Law AI on Practical Law, these constitute the industry’s most comprehensive set of generative AI skills, designed to help lawyers quickly gather deeper insights and deliver a better work product.

In less than a year since its launch, CoCounsel, the first-ever legal AI assistant has been rolled out to more than 45 large law firms in the United States—including six of the Am Law 10—which employ in total more than 50,000 lawyers. More than 9,000 of those lawyers have received comprehensive, hands-on instruction, preparing them to confidently use this powerful technology both effectively and ethically—from a training staff of only four. Now that the Casetext and Thomson Reuters teams have joined forces, this proven rollout “playbook” is rapidly scaling. Lawyers in Canada and Australia will now be empowered to work more efficiently and thoroughly, to better serve more clients.

The product is already being used in the proof-of-concept phase by McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Canada and Maddocks in Australia. McCarthy Tétrault LLP is a national law firm providing a broad range of legal services and industry-focused advice and solutions for Canadian and international interests. The firm has substantial presence in Canada’s major commercial centres as well as in New York City and London. Maddocks is a full service commercial law firm founded in 1885. It is one of Australia’s largest independent law firms with more than 85 partners and 580 lawyers and support staff across offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.

“Bringing CoCounsel Core to markets that until now haven’t had access to professional-grade AI is a tremendous accomplishment as we approach the one-year anniversary of CoCounsel’s debut, and just three months after launching CoCounsel Core in the US with Thomson Reuters,” said Jake Heller, head of Product, CoCounsel, Thomson Reuters. “As we empower more customers to realize tremendous improvements in productivity and work product quality, we’re motivated to move even faster to bring the power of generative AI to more of the world.”

The combined strengths of the former Casetext team and Thomson Reuters has made it possible to deliver a more robust set of products to more places more quickly. These two international launches of CoCounsel Core—the first of many 2024 advancements in Thomson Reuters mission to create generative AI solutions for professionals—mark an important moment in the company’s AI leadership strategy. And foundational to these efforts is the Thomson Reuters Generative AI Platform, an overarching innovation resource that enables the company to quickly and easily launch new solutions by leveraging reusable components and bringing together content, artificial intelligence, generative AI, and more, as the building blocks for future products.

Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters (NYSE / TSX: TRI) (“TR”) informs the way forward by bringing together the trusted content and technology that people and organizations need to make the right decisions. The company serves professionals across legal, tax, accounting, compliance, government, and media. Its products combine highly specialized software and insights to empower professionals with the data, intelligence, and solutions needed to make informed decisions, and to help institutions in their pursuit of justice, truth, and transparency. Reuters, part of Thomson Reuters, is a world leading provider of trusted journalism and news. For more information, visit tr.com.

Note to Editors:

Quote from Steve Assie, head of Canada, Thomson Reuters
“Our customers in Canada have been eagerly anticipating the availability of professional-grade AI for their legal work,” said Steve Assie, head of Canada, Thomson Reuters, “and we’re excited to finally give them access to these transformative capabilities, with CoCounsel Core. Canadian lawyers will now be able to work more efficiently, for more clients, as well as gain a significant competitive edge.”

Quote from Jackie Rhodes, managing director, Asia & Emerging Markets, Thomson Reuters
“Launching CoCounsel Core to lawyers in Australia is a milestone our customers have been waiting for and we’re proud to accomplish,” said Jackie Rhodes, managing director, Asia & Emerging Markets. “While most of the world has had access to general-use generative AI, until now no professional-grade gen AI product for lawyers has been available in Australia, and now this market can take advantage of the power of gen AI with the data and security guardrails necessary to meet professional legal standards.”

CONTACT
Ali Hughes
ali.hughes@thomsonreuters.com