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Evaluate legal research software by testing every finalist against the same real research questions from your firm, then comparing verified research quality, jurisdictional coverage, security, workflow fit, and the full contract cost. A feature list or AI-generated citation is not proof that a product meets your needs: attorneys should open and assess the underlying authorities, including their current treatment and any contrary authority.
What should your firm define before evaluating software?
Start with the work the software must support, not the vendor’s demo. A product can have broad coverage and still be a poor fit if it lacks a source your attorneys rely on, handles your jurisdictions unevenly, or adds friction to routine research.
- Jurisdictions: List the state and federal courts, agencies, and other jurisdictions where the firm researches law. Mark which are essential.
- Practice areas: Identify the subjects and source types that matter in each area, including primary law and any secondary sources your lawyers regularly consult.
- Users and workflows: Include the intended attorneys, librarians, legal operations staff, and administrators. Note who searches, reviews, exports, and checks citations.
- Research tasks: Identify common questions, difficult recurring matters, and work that currently takes substantial time or is hard to complete with existing tools.
- Existing tools and constraints: Record current subscriptions, relevant document and research workflows, required integrations, internal security policies, client requirements, and budget limits.
Use these details to decide which capabilities are requirements and which are preferences. Do not assume that a broad database label guarantees the materials your firm needs; ask vendors to identify coverage limits and unavailable content.
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How should you run a fair product trial?
Give each finalist the same representative questions and evaluation conditions. Use questions drawn from actual firm work, while following the firm’s confidentiality and security rules for any client-related information. If a trial cannot safely use client materials, select suitably de-identified or nonconfidential examples.
- Choose the questions. Include routine research, difficult or recurring issues, and questions that test the firm’s essential jurisdictions and practice areas. Where relevant, include questions with a known controlling authority or a meaningful contrary authority.
- Set the same task for each finalist. Record the question, the expected jurisdiction and legal issue, the sources the lawyer would normally consult, and any known authorities or pitfalls. Give each product equivalent instructions and access to the same user roles.
- Have intended users do the work. A procurement demonstration does not show whether attorneys will use the software consistently or whether the workflow fits daily practice. Include the people who would search, review, and administer the product.
- Record what happened. For each task, note relevant authorities found or missed, irrelevant results, treatment of contrary authority, time spent, steps required, and any follow-up needed to verify the answer. Preserve examples rather than relying on general impressions.
- Score evidence, not presentation. Keep vendor statements separate from what your users observed. A polished summary, large result set, or claimed feature is not a substitute for an answer that holds up when the underlying materials are checked.
Use one shared scorecard, with weights set in advance to reflect the firm’s work and risk profile. A useful scorecard records the task, the observed result, supporting notes or examples, and a rating for each criterion. Establish what counts as a material omission before scoring so that different evaluators apply the same standard.
How do you assess coverage, results, and citations?
For conventional search as well as AI-assisted answers, follow important results back to their sources. Assess whether the software retrieves controlling authority, reflects relevant facts and procedural posture, surfaces contrary authority, and provides useful secondary-source context. Record jurisdiction and database gaps explicitly.
Check AI-generated analysis at the proposition level
Do not treat a citation displayed beside an AI answer as proof that the answer is supported. For each material proposition in a generated summary or response:
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- Open the cited authority and confirm that it is the source identified.
- Read the relevant passage and assess whether it supports the specific proposition.
- Check the authority’s current status using the firm’s normal citator workflow.
- Look for omitted or contrary authority relevant to the question.
- Record unsupported statements, citation mismatches, and important omissions alongside successful results.
Attorneys remain responsible for evaluating the authorities and the legal analysis. A product’s citation display, summary, or claimed connection to a source database does not independently establish accuracy.
Distinguish product descriptions from verified results
The Maryland State Bar Association’s resource describes Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel as offering AI-assisted research, summaries referencing primary sources, KeyCite, statute and regulation comparison, and multijurisdictional surveys. Thomson Reuters describes CoCounsel Deep Research as grounded in Westlaw and Practical Law content, with hyperlinks and KeyCite integration. These are descriptions from a bar resource and the vendor, respectively; they do not establish comparative accuracy against other products.
The same Maryland State Bar Association resource describes Lexis+ AI features including AI legal search, case summarization, analytics, integration with the Lexis+ ecosystem, conversational assistance, and document drafting and review. That description is not a comparative evaluation, and it does not establish suitability for a particular firm’s practice, coverage needs, or contract.
What should you compare about security and confidentiality?
Before putting client material into a pilot, obtain current written answers and review them with the firm’s security and ethics stakeholders. Compare the answers with confidentiality duties, client requirements, internal policies, and applicable jurisdictional guidance.
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- Are prompts or uploaded materials used to train or improve models? If so, under what terms and controls?
- What access controls, encryption, and auditability are provided?
- Where is data hosted, and which subprocessors can access or handle it?
- What are the incident response and breach-notification commitments?
- Which protections and obligations appear in the contract, rather than only in marketing material?
Ethics guidance can vary by jurisdiction. The American Bar Association Legal Technology Resource Center provides links to a state-by-state collection of cloud ethics opinions; consult the jurisdictions relevant to the firm rather than assuming a single rule applies everywhere. The ABA’s summary of its 2024 Legal Technology Survey Report, released March 3, 2025, says 60% of firms had implemented formal cybersecurity policies. That survey finding describes firms, not the security posture of a particular legal research product.
Will the software fit your firm’s daily work?
Test the product in the workflows lawyers actually use. A capability that exists but is awkward to access, difficult to learn, or poorly aligned with existing tools may not deliver practical value.
- Search, review, and citation-checking steps required for routine tasks
- Document export and handling of citations in the firm’s work product
- Fit with existing research, document, and technology workflows
- Accessibility, onboarding effort, training needs, and likely adoption across intended users
- Administrative controls, support arrangements, and implementation demands
Include enough intended users to reveal differences in experience and training needs. Record the steps people actually took and where they needed help; do not infer broad adoption from one administrator’s successful demonstration.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How should you compare products and contracts?
Compare finalists on the same requirements and the same complete configuration. A name or headline feature list is not enough to establish what a firm will receive or pay.
| Product example | Features described in the reviewed source | What the description does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel | The Maryland State Bar Association resource describes AI-assisted research, summaries referencing primary sources, KeyCite, statute and regulation comparison, and multijurisdictional surveys. Thomson Reuters describes CoCounsel Deep Research as grounded in Westlaw and Practical Law content, with hyperlinks and KeyCite integration. | Comparative accuracy, coverage for a particular firm’s matters, current security and contract terms, and the price for a particular configuration are not established by these descriptions. The Maryland State Bar Association says price varies by attorney count, jurisdiction, and contract length; trial availability is described as by request. |
| Lexis+ AI | The Maryland State Bar Association resource describes AI legal search, case summarization, analytics, integration with the Lexis+ ecosystem, conversational assistance, and document drafting and review. | Comparative accuracy, coverage for a particular firm’s matters, current price, and contract terms are not stated in the reviewed resource. |
These examples are not a complete market survey or a ranking. Verify current product scope, coverage, security, availability, and contractual details directly with each vendor, then test the capabilities that matter to your firm.
Request a written quote for the exact configuration under consideration. It should make clear which jurisdictions, content add-ons, AI functions, seats, usage assumptions, contract term, renewals, onboarding, support, and training are included. Compare like with like, including any costs or limits that would change how the firm uses the product.
How can you estimate value without relying on vendor ROI claims?
Build a local estimate from the firm’s workload and pilot observations. The American Bar Association’s March 3, 2025 summary of its 2024 Legal Technology Survey Report says 67% of attorneys relied on fee-based online services for legal research, while 55% used free platforms such as government websites and legal databases. Those are survey findings attributed to the ABA; they do not show that a particular paid product saves time or money for your firm.
For each finalist, compare the full contract and implementation costs with the firm’s observed use and outcomes. Include time spent researching and verifying results, research volume, onboarding and training, implementation effort, and the value of any workflow changes the firm can substantiate. Use your own pilot records rather than assuming vendor claims predict your results. If the expected value depends on a capability that users did not test, label that assumption rather than treating it as a demonstrated benefit.
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What should the firm document before deciding or renewing?
Keep the scorecard, representative questions, observed results, vendor commitments, written quote, and decision rationale together. State which requirements were met, which gaps remain, who is responsible for unresolved security or contract questions, and what assumptions informed the decision. Weight coverage, quality, security, workflow fit, implementation, support, and total cost according to the firm’s actual work and risk profile; there is no universal ranking that fits every firm.
Before renewal, compare expected value with observed use and outcomes. Review whether the product is being used for the tasks that justified the purchase, whether important gaps remain, and whether the current configuration and contract still match the firm’s needs.
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