Last week, on March 1, Casetext’s CEO Jake Heller and Chief Innovation Officer Pablo Arredondo appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to announce CoCounsel, the AI legal assistant powered by the latest, most advanced large language model from OpenAI. The Casetext executives were joined by CoCounsel beta customer Greg Siskind, founding partner of the immigration law firm Siskind Susser, PC.
Arredondo, Heller, and Siskind sat down with Morning Joe’s Mika Brzezinski, Jonathan Lemire, and Mike Barnicle to discuss the capabilities of the world’s first AI legal assistant.
Heller explained that CoCounsel can read, write, and understand at a high level, giving lawyers the ability to delegate several substantive legal tasks, such as legal research and document review, and get answers to complex questions incredibly quickly.
During a live demo of CoCounsel, Heller uploaded the 847-page final report released by the House’s January 6 Committee, which was tasked with conducting an 18-month investigation into former President Donald Trump’s conduct on the date two years ago.
Lemire and Heller asked CoCounsel several questions, such as whether there is evidence in the report to charge Trump with insurrection. Heller prompted CoCounsel to perform its Review Documents skill, and within approximately three minutes, the AI assistant provided thorough responses to each question and cited several specific pages where the information was sourced.
“Like a good lawyer, it’s trying to make the best case it can,” said Heller while reviewing
CoCounsel’s detailed responses. He noted that CoCounsel did include information that could be used in counterarguments, along with an analysis of the material it cited.
When Barnicle asked how a lawyer might use CoCounsel in daily practice, Heller explained CoCounsel can help the attorney find the law on a particular issue, conduct a thorough legal analysis, and ultimately advise a client.
Siskind, an immigration lawyer, noted he uses CoCounsel in the course of numerous client consultations to quickly get an answer he knows he can rely on “because CoCounsel is not just combing the web—it’s going into legal libraries.”
Arredondo connected with Siskind, who filed a national class action suit for more than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees seeking work authorization, to provide CoCounsel as a resource for the case. Siskind is handling the matter on a pro bono basis and stated CoCounsel “proved really helpful” in finding answers to the multi-layered issues involved in the case.
Siskind also explained how CoCounsel might help “DREAMers.” The term DREAMer originally took its name from the bill in Congress, and refers to young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children—and in many cases identify as American and have lived here most of their lives—who have hopes and dreams for a better future.
“There’s a lot of complex legal issues our lawyers deal with” in DREAMer cases, said Siskind. He explained CoCounsel’s skills and databases help him counsel Dreamers coming in with a broad range of issues and nuanced facts, such as “whether they’re eligible to get permanent residency … it may depend on their immigration history, what circuit they’re living in … all the federal case law is in [CoCounsel],” so he can ask CoCounsel a question and quickly get the guidance he needs.
Watch the entire segment on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
Learn more about CoCounsel at casetext.com/cocounsel.
