Irwin Mitchell, one of the largest general practice law firms in the UK, has selected Lexis+ AI, its LLM-based legal tech capability, to support its lawyers with research and drafting.
Eleanor Windsor, Partner, Director of Knowledge Management, at Irwin Mitchell, said: ‘It will enable us to maximise the value of the legal intelligence we already access from LexisNexis.’
And that point makes sense, i.e. if you have LexisNexis for many things, such as research, then why not have their LLM capability too? Of course, Thomson Reuters would probably say the same thing about CoCounsel. The battle will continue.
Meanwhile, everyone will also probably have Copilot via Microsoft as well. In short, it’s going to be a future of many overlapping pieces when it comes to LLMs and what they can do.
Either way, the UK law firm is hoping Lexis+ AI will bring significant benefits. A November 2023 survey of early users of Lexis+ AI in the US saw 74% estimating that they would save 7 hours a week on legal research and 80% estimating a saving of 6 hours a week on legal drafting.
Irwin Mitchell said they will be using Lexis+ AI’s conversational search to ‘enable them to ask legal questions as they would to a trusted colleague, with cited and linked answers’.
Case law summarisation from a simple request will also be useful, they said. And the ability to securely upload firm documents and ask questions and analyse them will enable the lawyers to extract key insights in moments, offering significant time savings, they added.
Gerry Duffy, Managing Director, LexisNexis UK & Ireland, concluded: ‘For all businesses, embracing new technology can be challenging. But doing so is essential, and AI opens up a wealth of potential. We are excited to partner with Irwin Mitchell and help them to deliver a world-class customer experience.’