Evaluate legal research software by testing every finalist against the same representative questions from your firm’s work, then recording coverage, source quality, citation support, security, workflow fit, and the full contract cost. A feature list or polished demo cannot show whether a product performs well on your matters; a documented pilot can.
Define what your firm needs before scheduling demos
Start with the work the software must support, not the vendor’s feature menu. The right fit depends on your jurisdictions, practice areas, users, recurring research tasks, existing subscriptions, and budget. A firm handling matters in several jurisdictions may need different coverage from a firm focused on one local practice area.
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- Map required sources: List the primary law and secondary materials attorneys rely on in each jurisdiction and practice area. Mark must-haves separately from useful extras.
- Identify representative users and tasks: Include the attorneys, librarians, legal operations staff, and IT or security reviewers who will use or administer the service. Note common tasks such as finding controlling authority, checking a statute, or surveying law across jurisdictions.
- Record the current baseline: Document existing subscriptions and workflows, known coverage gaps, and what the firm spends time doing. This gives the pilot something meaningful to compare against.
Do not assume a broad database label guarantees access to the particular materials your lawyers need. Ask vendors to identify relevant databases and jurisdiction limits, then verify those claims during the pilot.
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Give each finalist the same set of questions, using matters that reflect the firm’s actual work. Include ordinary recurring searches as well as difficult questions where procedural posture, fact distinctions, or competing authority matter. Use suitable anonymized or public materials unless the firm has approved the handling of client information.
- Write the test set before trying products. For each question, note the jurisdiction, relevant facts, the kind of answer needed, and any known controlling or contrary authority. Keep the wording and any supplied context consistent across finalists.
- Run each question through the same workflow. Use the product as an intended user would, and record the search steps, time spent, and whether the result can be followed back to the underlying source.
- Log misses as well as successes. Note missing authorities, irrelevant results, unhelpful secondary material, unsupported statements, and friction in exporting or checking citations. Do not score only the examples that worked well.
- Include intended users. A procurement demonstration may not reveal how the attorneys who will do the work handle search, review, training, or daily use. Have representative users complete tasks and record where they need help.
- Keep a written record. Preserve the test questions, results, observations, and decision rationale so the firm can compare actual use and outcomes with expectations at renewal.
Score coverage, retrieval, and legal research quality
For each test, assess whether the product finds relevant controlling authority, reflects the facts and procedural posture that matter, and makes contrary authority visible. Evaluate secondary sources for whether they add useful context to the primary law, rather than treating volume of results as quality.
A practical scorecard can use a consistent rating scale chosen by the firm, plus space for evidence and notes. Weight the categories according to the firm’s work and risk profile; there is no universal weighting that fits every practice.
- Coverage: Are the required jurisdictions, primary law, and secondary sources available? Are any databases or jurisdictions limited?
- Retrieval: Does the system surface relevant authority and distinguish useful results from noise?
- Legal context: Does it help the researcher account for material facts, procedural posture, and contrary authority?
- Traceability: Can the user open the source behind a result and check the proposition against it?
- Workflow and usability: How much time and effort do searching, review, citation handling, and document export require?
Keep observations attached to the test question that produced them. A single strong or weak example should not be mistaken for a reliable conclusion about every task or jurisdiction.
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A citation shown beside an AI-generated answer is a lead to check, not proof that the answer is correct. Apply the same source-level scrutiny to AI synthesis as to conventional search results, and make human review part of the pilot.
- Open each authority cited for a material proposition and confirm that it is the cited primary material.
- Read enough of the authority to determine whether it actually supports the proposition for which the product uses it.
- Check the authority’s current treatment through the firm’s normal citator workflow.
- Look for contrary authority and material omissions, not only whether the cited cases exist.
- Record unsupported assertions, inaccurate characterizations, broken or mismatched citations, and any difficulty verifying the answer.
Lawyers remain responsible for evaluating authority and legal analysis. The Maryland State Bar Association describes Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel as offering research summaries that reference primary sources and KeyCite; Thomson Reuters says CoCounsel Deep Research responses are grounded in Westlaw and Practical Law content, with hyperlinks and KeyCite integrated. These are product descriptions, not independent findings that either product is more accurate than alternatives.
Review confidentiality, privacy, and security before using client information
Before a pilot includes client material, obtain current written answers from the vendor and review them with the firm’s ethics and security stakeholders. Align the answers with client requirements, firm policy, confidentiality duties, and the rules relevant to the jurisdictions in which the firm practices.
- What data is retained, for how long, and how can it be deleted?
- Are prompts or uploaded documents used to train models?
- What access controls, encryption, and auditability are available?
- Where is information hosted, and which subprocessors may handle it?
- What are the vendor’s incident-response and breach-notification commitments?
- Which protections and responsibilities are stated in the contract, rather than only in marketing materials?
Do not assume one ethics rule applies nationwide. The American Bar Association Legal Technology Resource Center links to a state-by-state collection of cloud ethics opinions; consult the guidance relevant to the firm’s jurisdictions. 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 figure describes firms overall; it does not establish the security posture of any particular research product.
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Test workflow, administration, and adoption
Use routine tasks in the tools and document workflows lawyers actually rely on. Record whether the product fits existing research practices and technology, and what it takes to administer and support.
- Onboarding effort, training needs, and accessibility
- Search and review steps, citation handling, and document export
- Integration with existing research and document workflows
- Administrative controls, support, and the effort required to manage users
- Whether intended users are likely to use the product consistently after the trial
Adoption is part of product fit: a capability that is rarely used may not deliver value, even if it looks compelling in a demonstration.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Compare complete configurations and estimate value locally
Request a written quote for the exact configuration under consideration. Compare like with like rather than comparing feature headlines or a quote for a different firm’s bundle.
| Compare | What to confirm |
|---|---|
| Coverage and add-ons | Jurisdictions, databases, content add-ons, and any limits on access |
| Users and term | Seat count, contract length, renewal terms, and any usage limits |
| AI functions | Which functions are included, their usage assumptions, and any additional terms |
| Services | Onboarding, training, support, and any associated costs |
| Contract and safeguards | Applicable privacy, security, data-use, retention, and incident-response commitments |
The Maryland State Bar Association says Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel pricing varies by attorney count, jurisdiction, and contract length. Treat that as a reason to request firm-specific terms, not as a price estimate for another firm. The association describes trial availability as by request. Confirm current availability, scope, pricing, security details, and contract terms directly with the vendor.
Build a local value estimate from the firm’s observed research volume and time, together with training, implementation, and contract costs. Compare the estimate with the current workflow and the pilot’s recorded results. Thomson Reuters recommends considering return on investment, but no independent, comparable savings figure is established here; do not treat vendor claims as a prediction of your firm’s outcome.
The American Bar Association’s summary of its 2024 survey also reports that 67% of attorneys relied on fee-based online services for legal research and 55% used free platforms such as government websites and legal databases. These are survey findings as summarized in the ABA’s March 3, 2025 release, not measurements of the value or performance of any particular product.
Use product descriptions as starting points, not rankings
The following examples illustrate why firms should verify the exact configuration and test it against their own needs. They are not a complete market survey or a comparative product evaluation.
| Product example | What the cited description says | What the firm still needs to verify |
|---|---|---|
| Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel | The Maryland State Bar Association describes AI-assisted research, summaries referencing primary sources, KeyCite, statute and regulation comparison, and multi-jurisdictional surveys. Thomson Reuters describes CoCounsel Deep Research as grounded in Westlaw and Practical Law content, with source hyperlinks and KeyCite integration. | Current scope for the firm’s jurisdictions and work, citation performance in the pilot, security and contract terms, firm-specific price, and trial availability. |
| 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. | Current price, coverage for the firm’s practice, contract terms, security commitments, and performance on the firm’s test questions. |
These descriptions come from the Maryland State Bar Association resource and Thomson Reuters’ own product guidance, not from independent side-by-side testing. No comparative accuracy result or definitive ranking is established by those descriptions.
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Choose the configuration that best meets the firm’s documented requirements and risk tolerance, based on the pilot and the written commercial and security terms. The decision record should identify the test set, scorecard, trade-offs, approved users and use cases, and reasons for selecting or declining each finalist.
At renewal, compare actual use and outcomes with the expectations recorded when the firm made its decision. Revisit coverage, adoption, observed workflow effects, contract terms, and total cost rather than assuming the original case for the subscription still holds.
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