Skill: Review documents
Learn to use CoCounsel's Review Documents skill
Lawyers need to quickly review files to answer questions or identify certain information. CoCounsel's Review Documents skill reads files word-for-word to provide an answer table with a response for every document for every question.
You may access the Review Documents skill in various ways.
In this situation, we will begin by uploading files.
- Add files to the chat. CoCounsel will add files to the chat and ask how to proceed.
- Tell CoCounsel you want to review documents and then select send. CoCounsel will confirm its work.noteFor example:Please review these documents to help me understand if there are signs of unusual accounting or financial management practices, if there are signs of humor or sarcasm or anyone joking around, or if anyone is anxious about their job or employer.
- In the upper right corner of CoCounsel's response, the Review Documents skill is confirmed.
- UnderQuestions, CoCounsel will list the questions to answer during its review. You may manage the questions:
- To edit a question, place your cursor within the text of a question.
- To delete a question, select the trash can.
- To add a question, select the buttonAdd question.
- If you no longer need assistance, selectCancel.
- When you are ready to proceed, selectSubmit request. CoCounsel will begin its work and show its progress
- To receive a notification when the results are ready, selectEmail me when complete.
- To stop CoCounsel's work, selectCancel.
- When your results are ready, selectView results. The results window will appear.
- Review the results.
- For every question for every file, there is a short answer, a longer explanation, and a link to the full analysis.
- To review CoCounsel's responses you may need to scroll up and down and left to right.
- To verify CoCounsel's responses, selectView full analysis. The side viewing panel will appear.
- On the left side underSupporting analysis, select page numbers to go to that part of the original document in the right-side viewing panel.
- On the right side, use navigation and search options to navigate the viewing panel.
- To close the viewing panel, go to the top right and selectClose panel.
- To download the results, go to the top of the results and selectDownloadand then choose a download option:Word Document - Short Answers Only,Word Document - With Explanations and Sources, orExcel Spreadsheet. The results will download.
Limitations
The request length can be up to about 30 questions.
The amount of relevant material CoCounsel can identify is not limited.
CoCounsel understands nuance, humor, and implied references. This means CoCounsel finds information and references that traditional search engines cannot. The best requests are specific, clear, precise, and concise. When requests are not, CoCounsel may omit additional information to focus on just a part of a longer, complex, overbroad question.
CoCounsel reads each file on its own. This means CoCounsel cannot complete requests that require CoCounsel to compare or contrast information across separate files.
important
The answer table shows how each document answers each question. Therefore, the answer table provides helpful comparison and contrast information.
Tips
- Use narrow, specific questions. It's better to ask multiple, narrow questions rather than a single, broad question.tipToo broad:What was the Planned Parenthood case about?Better:What were the elements of the court’s reasoning in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)?
- Be precise and concise
- Avoid using vague or ambiguous language, like passive voice.tipPassive voice:Where the defense was sided with by the court.Active voice:Where the court sided with the defense.
- Spell out legal terms a law student might not know.
- Grammatical and spelling errors in a question can be misinterpreted.
tipWordy:Cases where there was a minor who was the plaintiff, and who was also under the age of 14 at the time of the alleged events that the court was considering.Better:Cases with a minor plaintiff under the age of 14.