Skills

Understanding CoCounsel skills

Learn about CoCounsel skills
CoCounsel completes substantive legal tasks with legal-specific applications called "skills." There are 4 types of skills.
Research skills
 answer a single question across a large dataset.
  • AI-Assisted Research (requires a separate subscription)
  • Ask Practical Law AI (requires a separate subscription)
  • Search a Database
Review skills
 read files word-for-word to find content you specify.
  • Review Documents
  • Extract Contract Data
  • Contract Policy Compliance (coming soon)
Summarize skills
 read files word-for-word to provide fixed answers.
  • Summarize
  • Timeline
Draft skills
 use a description to create content you specify.
  • Draft correspondence
  • Prepare for a Deposition

AI-Assisted Research

AI-Assisted Research answers a legal research question by searching Westlaw Precision's trusted legal database of cases, statutes, regulations, administrative materials, practical guidance, secondary materials, and news content. Results include a short memo with inline citations for fast verification and a list of every source identified during the research.
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  • Use AI-Assisted Research to ask 1 legal research question across Westlaw Precision's database of legal content.
  • For practical guidance, use Ask Practical Law AI.
  • AI-Assisted Research is available with a separate subscription to Westlaw Precision (US).
  • Timing: About 2-3 minutes, depending on the complexity of the question.

Ask Practical Law AI

Ask Practical Law AI finds practical guidance from Practical Law's attorney editor-authored resources, like procedural information for a litigation matter or standard terms for a contracting scenario. Results include a short memo with inline citations for fast verification and a list of every source identified during the research.
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  • Use Ask Practical Law AI to ask one question across Practical Law's database of practical guidance.
  • For legal research, use AI-Assisted Research.
  • Ask Practical Law AI is available with a separate subscription to Practical Law Dynamic (US).
  • Timing: About 2-3 minutes, depending on the complexity of the question.

Search a Database

Search a Database answers questions by searching a database of your information to answer a question, like an internal bank of briefs or contracts, litigation records, e-discovery, or any other large corpus of information. Results include a memo with a list of the most relevant documents identified during the search.
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  • Use Search a Database to ask 1 question across one of your databases.
  • To ask multiple questions across many files, use the Review skills.
  • This skill doesn't provide a summary of the entire database.
  • Timing: About 3-5 minutes, depending on the complexity of the question.

Review Documents

Review Documents reads documents word-for-word to answer questions or identify certain information. Results include a table with an answer for every question for every document.
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  • Use Review Documents when you have an agenda, meaning when you know what information you want to find or what questions you want answered.
  • When you don't have an agenda but still want to understand a document, use the Summarize skill.
  • To review contracts, agreements, and other highly-structured content, you may want to use Extract Contract Data.
  • Timing: About 1 minute for every 50 pages and each question

Extract Contract Data

Extract Contract Data reads contracts word-for-word to answer questions or extract specific data. Results include a table with an answer for every question for every contract.
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  • Use Extract Contract Data when you have an agenda, meaning you know what data you want to extract from contracts.
  • When you don't have an agenda but still want to understand a contract, use the Summarize skill.
  • To review documents, use Review Documents.
  • Timing: About 1 minute for every 50 pages and each question

Contract Policy Compliance (coming soon)

Contract Policy Compliance reads contracts word-for-word to ensure the current terms of the contract comply with your policies. Results include a restatement of the policies you provided, a list of contract terms that are relevant to your policies, an explanation of how the current terms are different than your policies, and a suggested redline to bring the existing terms into compliance with your policies.
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  • Use Contract Policy Compliance when you need redlines.
  • To answer questions about the terms of the contract, use Extract Contract Data.
  • Timing: About 10 minutes for 10 contracts and 30 policies.

Summarize

Summarize reads files word-for-word to quickly summarize long, complicated content. Choose to receive results in 3 lengths: Brief, Detailed, or Comprehensive.
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  • Use Summarize when you don't have an agenda, meaning you don't have any specific questions about the files.
  • Summarize can't focus on certain information.
  • If you want CoCounsel to focus on certain information or answer certain questions, use the Review skills.
  • Timing: About 1 minute for every 10 pages.

Timeline

Timeline reads files word-for-word to quickly identify date, time, and event description information. Results include a dynamic, searchable list of every event mentioned in the files.
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  • Use Timeline to highlight all of the events mentioned in files.
  • Timeline can't be focused on certain information.
  • If you want CoCounsel to focus on certain information or answer certain questions, use the Review skills.
  • Timing: About 1 minute for every 10 pages.

Draft Correspondence

Draft Correspondence uses your description of a letter, email, memo, or other correspondence to create a draft.
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  • Draft Correspondence doesn't consult legal sources while drafting.
  • Timing: About 1-2 minutes, depending on complexity.

Prepare for a deposition

Prepare for a deposition uses your description of an upcoming deposition or other investigative or interview scenario to identify relevant topics and questions.
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  • Prepare for a Deposition does not consult legal sources while drafting topics and questions.
  • Timing: About 1-2 minutes for each set of topics and questions.

Overall

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Generally, there can be a tradeoff between the size of files and the amount of files. For example, CoCounsel may be able to work with many smaller files in the same time as a few larger files. CoCounsel will provide an estimated time to complete the work.
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The timing listed for each skill is an estimate.
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As a legal assistant, CoCounsel is intended to help lawyers complete tasks more efficiently, but it cannot be used to replace their judgment. It is still up to lawyers to decide what to do with the information CoCounsel provides.

Related content

This article applies to:

  • Product: CoCounsel
  • Subject: AI