Legal research just got a powerful upgrade! USF Law students and faculty now have access to Lexis Protege and Westlaw CoCounsel, two advanced AI-powered legal research assistants designed to streamline complex legal tasks, enhance research accuracy, and improve productivity.
These tools represent a significant leap in legal technology, integrating generative AI to assist with drafting, document analysis, legal research, and much more. Whether you’re working on a memo, reviewing contracts, or preparing for moot court, these AI tools can save time and improve the quality of your work.
What Can These AI Tools Do?
Lexis Protege: “Your Personalized AI Legal Assistant”
LexisNexis Protégé is an agentic AI system, meaning it can autonomously complete tasks, review its own work, and suggest improvements—offering next-level productivity and efficiency.
Key features include:
✅ Drafting & Editing: Generate tailored litigation motions, briefs, and complaints, with built-in AI-powered review for accuracy.
✅ Legal Research & Citations: Review uploaded motions or arguments and find stronger supporting authority from the LexisNexis database.
✅ Summarization & Analysis: Upload large legal documents (up to 300 pages) and generate summaries, timelines, and key insights.
✅ Deposition & Discovery Assistance: Draft deposition questions and discovery documents, including interrogatories and requests for production.
✅ Secure Document Storage & Research Vault: Upload legal documents for AI-assisted analysis, summarization, and research—all while maintaining security and compliance.
Protégé is embedded within Lexis+ AI and Lexis Create+, making it easy to integrate into your workflow, whether drafting in Microsoft Word or conducting research within Lexis+ AI.
Westlaw CoCounsel: AI-Powered Legal Workflows
Westlaw CoCounsel is designed to tackle large-scale legal research, document review, and contract analysis using advanced generative AI.
Key features include:
✅ AI-Powered Document Review: Upload and analyze contracts, legal briefs, or case materials, with CoCounsel extracting relevant clauses and summarizing key points.
✅ Advanced Legal Search & Data Extraction: Quickly search databases, case files, or document sets using natural-language queries.
✅ Drafting & Automation: Generate legal memos, deposition prep materials, and contract compliance reports with AI-assisted accuracy.
✅ Comparative Document Analysis: Pinpoint key differences and similarities across multiple contracts, agreements, or legal filings.
✅ Chronological Case Timelines: Automatically generate timelines of legal events from uploaded case files to track developments and support litigation strategy.
Why Should You Use These AI Tools?
These AI-powered assistants do not replace legal reasoning or judgment, but they can dramatically enhance your efficiency, accuracy, and workflow management. They help law students:
✔ Save time on research and document drafting.
✔ Improve accuracy by identifying missing citations, refining legal arguments, and validating source materials.
Need Help Getting Started?
We know that integrating AI into legal research can feel overwhelming—but Zief Law Librarians are here to help!
📅 Schedule a research consultation with us to learn how to:
🔹 Use Lexis Protege and Westlaw CoCounsel effectively for your legal research.
🔹 Incorporate AI tools into briefs, memos, and other legal documents.
🔹 Understand AI’s ethical and practical limitations in legal research.
Don’t miss out on these powerful new tools—get started today and take your legal research to the next level!