Implementing Extractive AI to help lawyers strategise more wins and deliver better client outcomes
The boundaries of technology are advancing at an unprecedented rate, particularly in the realm of AI. The legal industry is on the cusp of a new, transformative era – and LexisNexis New Zealand will soon be launching the next evolution in legal research.
Gone are the days where lawyers have to spend hours researching relevant cases, comparing legislation and trawling through documents to find the most relevant precedents. With the launch of Lexis+, lawyers will be able to save hours (or even days) of their time, freeing them up to focus on anything from billable hours, networking or simply maintaining work-life balance.
According to the marketing team at LexisNexis NZ, the key aim of Lexis+ is to build upon the wealth of legal tech and information that LexisNexis already offers and ultimately to provide legal professionals with more time to do what matters most to them.
“We launched Lexis Advance in 2015, and it was the next evolution in research technology at the time,” LexisNexis tells NZ Lawyer.
“Technology has grown exponentially in the last decade, and the advent of AI, extractive AI and generative AI, Lexis+ is the natural evolution of the next generation of legal research tools.”
Lexis+ and all the other advanced legal tech AI offerings you see from global LexisNexis businesses has been developed by our in-house global technology team for several years.
The new interface will hinge on the wealth of research content already available in Lexis Advance, but with new extractive AI technology overlaid on top of the content set. Using this technology, Lexis+ is able to surface highly relevant results in a much faster timeframe than ever before. Lexis Advance will continue to be available but with Lexis+, users will now have a choice to select which legal research platform is the right choice for their firm.
Lexis+ will offer three key features: Lexis Answers, Legislation Compare and Leading Cases. Lexis Answers is a natural language technology that provides users with a succinct response to legal questions. Using powerful machine learning and advanced language processing technologies, Lexis Answers transforms legal research by analysing your query and delivering clear, concise and informative answers.
LexisNexis highlights that this is a significant technological improvement where you no longer need to manually filter out what is relevant, which cases are leading and which aren’t. Lexis+ eliminates this, and the Leading Cases capability will enhance this even further.
“From the feedback we’ve had, it may take a legal researcher up to two hours to find a leading case. With Lexis+, they’ve managed to complete the search in under two minutes. We know that this is saving legal professionals hours of time.”
Leading Cases provides contextual and objective citation analytics to help support the user’s strategic decision-making to give them more control and increase their confidence in the research. When it comes to accuracy, LexisNexis notes that every answer provided by Lexis+ is reliable and accurate as it’s drawing from the vast amount of data and the millions of documents within the exclusive LexisNexis environment.
Last but not least, the Legislation Compare function will allow lawyers to quickly find key updates in new and amended legislation.
Legislation Compare provides an easy way to compare two versions of the same legislation to see what changes have been made and how the law has evolved over time. Legislation Compare speeds up your research and provides clear visibility of exactly what additions and deletions have been made. According to user feedback, it has reduced a task that would normally take between hours and days to just 2 minutes.
Ultimately, the team at LexisNexis notes that Lexis+’s biggest goal is to save lawyers valuable time and resources. A recent study conducted in the UK among Lexis+ users revealed significant time savings for legal professionals. Over a week, with an average workday of 10 hours, users saved a total of 8 hours and 28 minutes. That’s over an hour a day in time gained back.
“Imagine what lawyers could do with an additional hour a day,” LexisNexis concludes.
According to Phil Goodacre, Head of Commercial Sales NZ “The legal industry is under pressure, clients want more value and reduced costs while the complexities of matters keep increasing. Technology is a process enabler and Lexis+ is an essential investment to help create advantages in this increasingly competitive industry”.
“That could translate into being able to spend more time on billable hours, maximising fixed-price matters, networking with colleagues or focusing on work-life harmony. We’re very excited to be launching this next generation of technology into New Zealand’s legal market.”
Lexis+ will be launching in New Zealand in mid-2024. Learn more and contact our team to be among the first to experience the power of Lexis+ by clicking HERE.
