In this article
Summary and video
The “Review Documents” skill performs a line-by-line review of your documents to answer your questions specific to those documents, enabling you to quickly extract the information you need. This is not a keyword search; instead, CoCounsel uses AI technology to read every word in your documents. It will then prepare a table that contains answers to your questions, including citations to the pages of your documents where it found the answers. This skill is not meant to compare two documents, but rather answer questions about information in the documents themselves.
Please note: The “Review Documents” skill can be used with a wide variety of documents, but if you would like CoCounsel to analyze contracts, the “Extract Contract Data” skill is a better application for that task. The “Extract Contract Data” skill has been trained on thousands of contracts and is specifically designed to parse and comprehend contractual clauses.
Step-by-step instructions
(1) Launch “Review Documents”
To get started, go to CoCounsel, open the skills menu and click the “Review Documents” skill.
(2) Choose the documents that CoCounsel should review
You will then be prompted to choose documents for CoCounsel to review. You have the option of manually uploading a document from your computer, selecting a document from an AllSearch database, or copying and pasting a text passage, as shown below:
Using AllSearch with “Review Documents”: To choose a document from an AllSearch database instead of manually uploading a document from your computer, click the “Select from AllSearch” option shown above and then choose the AllSearch database you would like to draw from. To learn how to set up an AllSearch database, please see the following article from Casetext’s Help Center, “How do I use AllSearch?”
(3) Enter the questions you want CoCounsel to answer
After you have either uploaded or selected the documents that you want CoCounsel to review, click on the “Analyze documents” button, and you will see a dialog box where you can type in questions about the contents of those documents. The dialog box will initially show you fields to ask three questions, but you can enter additional questions by selecting the “Add Another Question” button. You can also delete a question you’ve entered by clicking on the trashcan icon.
When you are finished, select the “Get Your Answers” button, as shown below:
(4) Review CoCounsel’s output
CoCounsel shows its work with an answer grid. Begin reviewing CoCounsel’s response from the chat, or open the full response.
From the chat
From the chat, mouse over the response to expand the full response or download the response.
The full response
Use the full response to verify CoCounsel’s results. CoCounsel will prepare an answer grid so you can quickly find and review the most relevant results, including:
Customize Filters, Columns, and Density settings to review your results
Mouse over question columns to confirm the exact question asked
Mouse over short answers to read full explanations
Set Rows per page
Use arrows to navigate pages or results
Document-level review
Click a document row to see all details, including:
A link to view the full text of the document
All questions asked
All short answers
All full explanations
Sources, with page-level pincites for targeted review
Summarize reviewed documents
Ask CoCounsel to summarize reviewed documents directly from the full response.
Select "Summarize Documents" and choose a summary length.
Use checkboxes to select documents to summarize, then click "Run Summarize Skill."
CoCounsel will begin summarizing the selected documents. Click "View" to open the summary.
Review CoCounsel's progress and the summarized documents. Learn more about CoCounsel's "Summarize" skill
(5) Downloading the output
You have 3 options for downloading the results by clicking on Download on the bottom right.
Word Document - With Explanations and Sources: Long form version that includes explanations and sources
Word Document - Short Answers Only: Short form without explanations or sources
Excel Spreadsheet: This output will show the questions and short form answers in the first tab. In subsequent tabs, the questions and their short form answers will be provided in addition to their long form counterparts.
Limits
Input limits
File type
.doc, .docx, .pdf, .txt, and .zip folders
Files within a .zip folder must comply with file size and type limitations.
File size
500 MB .pdfs
20 MB text files
File amount
200 files
Text passages
15,000 characters (a warning appears when 5,000 characters remain)
Requests
30 questions
TIP: If you have files that exceed the size limit, CoCounsel will reject the file. Divide the files into batches of 100 files or less before uploading. |
Output limits
Unlimited relevant results.
Advanced Tips
Conflicting statements
If CoCounsel makes conflicting statements when answering your questions, it could mean that your documents contain conflicting information. You can investigate any conflicting information reported by CoCounsel by clicking on the links that show where in the documents CoCounsel found these statements.
Be clear and specific
Using clear, specific language in your questions yields best results. A vague question is likely to produce a vague response from CoCounsel.
Reviewing handwriting
CoCounsel’s ability to read handwritten documents can vary, depending on the legibility of the handwriting. Handwriting that mimics the appearance of typed words will be more easily understood by CoCounsel than cursive handwriting.
Avoid math
CoCounsel uses very advanced large language model neural net AI to read and write text at a post-graduate level. CoCounsel is not designed for mathematical calculations and analysis.
Sample Prompts
Review a deposition transcript in a sexual harassment case
Who did Plaintiff email about Mr. Whitman harassing her?
Had she complained verbally about harassment by other officers?
Who did she complain to verbally?
Does the document say how Whitman harassed the Plaintiff?
CoCounsel understands concepts
CoCounsel understands the concepts relevant to a question even when specific keywords are missing. For example, CoCounsel reviewed this auto policy to answer the question "Are there any exclusions for accidents involving a train?" CoCounsel identifies a supporting section of the document that excludes "vehicles operated on rails" from the definition of a "motor vehicle," even though it does not mention the word "train."
