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How can I use CoCounsel for my legal workflows?
How can I use CoCounsel for my legal workflows?

Use various CoCounsel capabilities together

Ryan Groff avatar
Written by Ryan Groff
Updated over a year ago

CoCounsel is a dynamic AI platform with many capabilities that can be used together to complete your common legal workflows.

A. Simple sample workflows

It is impossible to list all of the possible workflows CoCounsel can complete, but this is a list of some simple sample workflows.

Ask CoCounsel to summarize documents from a recent document review.

💬 Please provide a brief summary of the documents from the above document review.

Ask CoCounsel to summarize contracts after a recent data extraction.

💬 Provide a brief summary of the contracts from the above extract contract data results.

Ask CoCounsel to incorporate results in a letter or email.

💬 Please include the Answer from your legal research memo above in a letter to [explain the recipient and any other details about the letter, like the tone].

Ask CoCounsel to provide additional topics and questions to prepare for a deposition.

💬 Can you suggest 5 more topics with 5 more questions relevant to the deposition preparation above? Just type them right here in the chat.

B. Complex sample workflows

It is impossible to list all of the possible workflows CoCounsel can complete, but these are two complex sample workflows.

1. Litigation

Ask CoCounsel for assistance with legal research, or research in a database of your documents.

Legal Research

💬 I need to research [jurisdiction] cases to understand the elements of [legal issue, doctrine].

Research in a database of your documents

💬 I need to research a database to understand [enter your question or explain what you need].

📂 [Select the database.]

Then, ask CoCounsel to use its research during document review.

💬 Can you use the elements from the Answer in your research memo to review documents?

📂 Add relevant files, like witness transcripts and other discovery materials.

Or, ask CoCounsel to use its legal research to prepare for a deposition.

💬 Please use the Answer from this research memo to help me prepare for a deposition. [Explain who you represent, who you are deposing, and then include all the relevant facts that you would want to cover during this particular deposition.]

Then, ask CoCounsel to consider even more deposition topics and questions.

💬 Can you help me come up with 5 more topics with 5 more question each. Just type them right here in the chat.

Then, ask CoCounsel to help you consider how someone will evade your deposition questions.

💬 Help me consider ways that a [describe deponent] being deposed with these topics and questions would try to AVOID answering these questions?

Then, ask CoCounsel to help you prepare follow-ups to counter these evasions.

💬 Provide 2-3 bullets for each of these possible evasions that suggest how I might get around these avoidance tactics.

Legal work is rarely finished until it is communicated, so workflows usually end with a request for drafted correspondence.

💬 Please include the Answer from the above research memo in [a letter or an email] to [recipient, including any additional details and tone preferences].

2. Transactional

Ask CoCounsel for assistance with research in a database of your contracts.

💬 I need to research a database to understand [enter your question or explain what you need].

📂 [Select the database.]

Then, use what CoCounsel found in the clauses of the contracts in your database to hone your follow-up legal research.

💬 I need to do legal research to understand how courts in [jurisdiction] interpret the following contract terms in the context of [explain the present contract dispute or issue]: [insert contract terms from the database research Answer].

Then, ask CoCounsel to use the results of the legal research memo to help you identify terms that should be part of your future contracts.

💬 Please review the Analysis from the legal research memo above to identify terms that I should ensure are included in my future contracts. Please list those terms as bullets right here in the chat.

Then, ask CoCounsel to help you analyze contracts from a third party to extract certain data from those contracts.

💬 I would like you to extract data from contracts.

📂 Add relevant contracts.

💬 Please identify clauses that contain [insert terms identified from the legal research memo].

Legal work is rarely finished until it is communicated, so workflows usually end with a request for drafted correspondence.

💬 Please list the policies from the bulleted list above in [a letter or an email] to [recipient, including any additional details and tone preferences].

C. Tips

Move results to the chat

You have more flexibility to work with material when the content is in CoCounsel’s chat. So ask CoCounsel to move the results of its work to the chat.

💬 Represent the Analysis from the above legal research memo as a bulleted summary right here in the chat.

The chat can also serve as a kind of “staging area” to carry information between different CoCounsel abilities. For example, you might ask CoCounsel to convert the Answer from a database research memo into a short, bulleted list. Then you might use this format to ask CoCounsel to help you come up with additional deposition questions for each of these topics, or ask CoCounsel to include this bulleted list in a letter to your client.

Wait until CoCounsel’s work is complete

Wait until CoCounsel finishes working before asking it to use its current results in new work. For example, even though CoCounsel may finish writing the Answer to a legal research question before the memo appears as “Complete,” wait until the memo is complete before asking CoCounsel to use that Answer, for example, in a letter to your client.

Start a “New chat” for new work and be specific

CoCounsel benefits from an advanced form of large language model artificial intelligence called “generative AI.” When generative AI is working, the unit of measurement for the amount of information it can understand at any given time is called a “context window.” When the context window is full of information, generative AI will “forget” information shared earlier in the window to make room for new information. The exact context window for your work will vary, but context windows have two important implications for our work with CoCounsel:

  1. As your work takes on new angles and complexity, open the left sidebar and select “+ New Chat” for new work.

  2. Your work may require multiple legal research memos or various document reviews. As a result, in order to effectively work with CoCounsel, you will need to be specific. For example, which legal research memo Answer should CoCounsel use to draft correspondence?

D. Limitations

You must oversee CoCounsel’s legal assistance

CoCounsel is an AI legal assistant whose work must be reviewed before you include it in your work product. When CoCounsel is assisting you, it is completing discrete, specific tasks, and only those tasks. For example, CoCounsel is not using its legal research capabilities during document review. This means that, at each step of any workflow, you will use your experience, training, and independent judgment to oversee the work being completed.

Known follow-up limitations

CoCounsel will always tell you when it cannot perform a certain request. Some known follow-up limitations include:

  • Summarize all of the documents listed in a database research memo.

  • Perform a word-by-word review of all of the documents listed in a database research memo to answer a set of questions (e.g., use the "Search a Database" output as the starting point for a word-by-word review using the "Review Documents" function).

  • CoCounsel struggles with summarizing cases in a legal research memo.

  • CoCounsel struggles with summarizing pasted text.

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