Skill: AI-Assisted Research

Enter a legal research request into the chat, and then select the send icon. CoCounsel will take a moment to review your request and then provide a confirmation.
note
Example legal research request:
I need to do some legal research to understand if a shareholder is authorized to bring an action against a California director or corporation for failure to disclose a conflict of interest
.
Review CoCounsel's response.
In the upper right corner of CoCounsel's response, the AI-Assisted Research skill is confirmed.
In
Sources
, the source is
AI-Assisted Research
. You may change the source to
Ask Practical Law AI
.
Under
Legal question
, the legal research request is confirmed. You may edit this.
If you no longer need assistance, select
Cancel
.
When you are ready to proceed, select
Start AI-Assisted Research
. CoCounsel will begin its work and show its progress
To receive a notification when the results are ready, select
Email me when complete
.
To stop CoCounsel's work, select
Cancel
.
When your results are ready, select
View results
. The results window will appear.
Review the results.
At the top, CoCounsel restates the legal research question.
Then CoCounsel provides a response with hyperlinked in-line citations and resource reference numbers in brackets.
To go to a resource in Westlaw Precision, select the in-line citation. CoCounsel will open that resource in Westlaw.
To review a resource within the list of all resources, select the resource reference number in brackets. CoCounsel will open the side panel and scroll to that resource.
To open the list of all relevant resources and snippets, select
View supporting content
. CoCounsel will open the side panel.
To navigate the side panel of relevant resources, collapse and expand the types of relevant resources and snippets CoCounsel used in its response. Relevant resources include
Cases, statutes, and regulations
,
Administrative decisions and guidance
,
Practical Law
guidance,
Additional secondary sources
, and
News
articles.
tip
To close the side panel, select
Close panel
To refine your result, select
Refine result
. The follow-up question box will appear.
Enter your follow-up legal research question and then select the send icon.
note
Follow-up refinements may change the jurisdiction or provide more detail about the legal issue or key facts.
To copy the results to paste somewhere else, select
Copy
. To download the results as a Word Document, select the ellipsis icon, then select
Download
, and then
Word Document
. The results will download.

Limitations

Finding documents by citation, such as "5 U.S. 137"
Boolean or fielded queries, such as "summary judgment" /p "breach of contract"
Questions about particular documents, such as "Does the Jones v. Smith case include a situation with a supervisor as a defendant?"
Requests for analytics, such as "Which law firm has the most torts cases in 2023 so far?"
Commands to execute certain tasks, such as "Summarize the Jones v. Smith case" or "Email me the Jones v. Smith case and any cases that have negative KeyCite treatment"
Requests for comprehensive document retrievals, such as "Find all cases granting summary judgment on negligent misrepresentation claims"
Instructions to filter supporting authority, such as "Exclude any unpublished cases or criminal regulations"
Requests for timing or mathematical calculations, such as "By which date do I need to file a notice of appeal for a judgment entered on July 8th"
Questions about predictions of outcomes, such as "Will the Supreme Court overturn the Chevron doctrine?"
Requested comparisons across many jurisdictions, such as "How does each state address the privacy of data stored on a mobile device?"
Requested summaries of how the law has changed over time

Write a clear, concise, and focused query that is 1-2 sentences long
Provide relevant facts, but not extra information
Do not write a query in the style of a prompt, command, or instruction
Focus on a single issue or question
Avoid including proper names of people or parties

Cases, statutes, and regulations:
Between about 10-20.
Administrative decisions and guidance:
The most relevant 3 results.
Practical Law guidance:
The most relevant 3 results, but only if the connected Westlaw Precision account also has access to Practical Law.
Additional secondary sources:
The most relevant 3 results.
News:
The most relevant 3 results.