Thomson Reuters today announced the launch of the AI for Justice Legal Aid program, a two-pronged initiative that will provide select legal aid organizations with free access to and training on its CoCounsel generative AI software, while also providing other legal nonprofits access to CoCounsel at a steeply reduced price.
Spearheaded by Laura Safdie, a cofounder of Casetext, the company that originally developed CoCounsel, before its acquisition by Thomson Reuters, and who is now vice president, artificial intelligence GTM and global affairs at TR, the initiative was driven by the idea that the power of generative AI should be as accessible to legal services organizations as it is to other legal organizations, Safdie told me during a call earlier this week.
Laura Safdie
“As the most powerful technology to emerge in our lifetimes, generative AI is our first real opportunity to meaningfully tackle the justice gap, and to bring about a more efficient, effective, and equitable justice system for everyone,” said Safdie.
“We have the opportunity and the responsibility to ensure as many legal aid organizations as possible can access and effectively use game-changing AI solutions like CoCounsel, and I am grateful that Thomson Reuters is committing real focus to this critical mission.”
One prong of the program, the Legal Innovators Incubator, will work for a year with an inaugural class of 15 legal services organizations (LSOs). This pilot class includes The Innocence Center, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Lawyers Alliance for New York.
These organizations will receive free access to CoCounsel and access to TR experts who will work with them to develop the gen AI use cases that will most benefit their organizations and clients.
OpenAI, which CoCounsel leverages, has donated API credits to support the Legal InnovatorsIncubator program
As these organizations develop specific use cases, the use cases will be made available as playbooks or modules for other similar organizations to adapt to help amplify and accelerate their own use of AI.
“We’re giving them access for a year,” Safdie said. “And in exchange for that, they’re working with us really closely in a real co-development partnership on use-case identification.”
For example, playbooks may address how to use AI for asylum applications or for a habeas petition, Safdie said.
TR selected the pilot class from a large number of nominations, all 501(c)(3) organizations providing legal services to low-income individuals in the U.S. Safdie said she hopes to have additional classes in subsequent years.
Michael Semanchik, executive director of The Innocence Center, was already an early user of CoCounsel, even before its acquisition by TR. But he said the latest version has proven extremely helpful to him in his work to free those who have been wrongly convicted.
“In just two weeks of using its latest generation, CoCounsel 2.0, I’ve been able to apply CoCounsel even more broadly to advance our work,” Semanchik said. “For instance, it completed 10 grant applications for me in about three hours. Normally I’d spend an entire day on just one.” (See video below.)
In addition to launching the Legal Innovators Incubator program, TR is providing other LSOs and legal nonprofits with access to CoCounsel Core at a subsidized price.
“We did everything we could to get it as close to cost as possible,” Safdie said.
The price for eligible LSOs will be $50 per seat per month, according to TR. Included in that price is access to CoCounsel Core, version 2.0, and CoCounsel Drafting, as well as active support to help organizations use the AI in their practices.
“I think probably even more compelling than the pricing is the idea of having a partner through figuring out how you use gen AI for federal benefits work, how you use AI for domestic violence work,” Safdie said. “That is, for me, the most special part of this program. You can make something price accessible, but if it’s emotionally intimidating or you don’t have the bandwidth to drive, it’s not going to get used.”
“I want to bring them into the world where they have accessibility to the most compelling technology we’ve seen in our lifetimes,” Safdie said. “That might genuinely be the first real chance we have to make meaningful inroads against the justice gap.”
