Articles Posted in Artificial Intelligence

Introduction.

This posting draws on guidance and analysis from AALL, IFLA, ACRL, the ABA, Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis, NIST, Stanford HAI, and the World Economic Forum, among others. Artificial intelligence is no longer a speculative “future issue” for law and justice information professionals. By 2026, AI will be embedded, sometimes invisibly, into many legal research platforms, court systems, compliance workflows, and knowledge-management environments. The central question is no longer whether AI will affect our work, but how it reshapes professional responsibility, judgment, and value.

From Research Assistance to Research Accountability

INTRODUCTION:

The legal tech landscape is accelerating, with major announcements spanning AI, blockchain, and automation. Highlights include the American Arbitration Association’s partnership with Integra Ledger on blockchain document authentication, Thomson Reuters expanding CoCounsel and Westlaw Deep Research into law schools, law firms, law libraries and new product launches from Exterro, Quo, Tonkean, and UnitedLex. Together, these updates signal how quickly legal practice, education, and dispute resolution are being reshaped by technology.

FROM CO COUNSEL TO BLOCKCHAIN…

Introduction

Between now and 2030, law-librarian roles will transform rather than vanish. While routine tasks like first-pass reference triage, some technical cataloging, and current-awareness pathfinders will increasingly be automated, demand will rise for librarians with expertise in AI policy, knowledge architecture, data stewardship, research quality assurance, vendor evaluation, and legal analytics.

Institutions that pair clear AI governance, staff training, and data management will not only retain headcount but also create specialist positions, reshaping the profession.
Key sources: AALL State of the Profession 2025 · ILTA 2024 Tech Survey · ABA AI TechReport 2024 · Thomson Reuters Future of Professionals 2024 · WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025

Two months ago, during a media briefing at its New York City offices, Thomson Reuters offered a glimpse of what it called the “next generation” of its CoCounsel artificial intelligence platform, a shift, the company said, from AI tools that simply respond to prompts to intelligent agentic systems capable of planning, reasoning, and executing complex, multi step workflows in professional settings.

That vision became reality on August 5, 2025 with the official launch of CoCounsel Legal, a platform that blends agentic workflows with advanced research capabilities, all powered by Westlaw’s vast legal content. Thomson Reuters is positioning it as the most comprehensive AI solution yet for legal professionals.

First unveiled to the media during a July 24 press briefing, the new platform introduces two major innovations: guided workflows that can manage sophisticated legal tasks from start to finish, and Deep Research, an AI-powered research engine that leverages Westlaw’s proprietary tools to deliver thorough, authoritative results. In an August 5 posting in LawSites Weekly Bob Ambrogi writes… “Unlike traditional AI-assisted research that summarizes search results, Deep Research creates research plans, executes them iteratively, and delivers comprehensive reports with transparent reasoning”

Introduction

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping the legal profession, influencing how attorneys conduct research, draft briefs, analyze litigation risk, and advise clients. As AI tools like generative language models, legal search platforms, and predictive analytics systems become more prevalent, AI literacy has become essential for legal professionals. Law librarians, long recognized for their expertise in research instruction, information curation, and professional ethics, are well positioned to take the lead in promoting AI literacy across the legal ecosystem.

This paper examines the role law librarians should play in fostering AI understanding, outlines strategies for advancing AI literacy, and identifies the challenges and opportunities involved.

Inspired by Axios’s “Behind the Curtain: A White-Collar Bloodbath” (May 28, 2025)

Dario Amodei, cofounder and CEO of Anthropic, is issuing an urgent warning: advanced artificial intelligence may soon pose a serious threat to millions of white-collar jobs. While today’s AI systems, like Anthropic’s own Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, are currently seen as productivity boosters, Amodei cautions that this could quickly change as models become dramatically more powerful.

In internal presentations recently shared with government officials, Amodei projected that future AI models, potentially arriving in the early 2030s, could be capable of performing 80 to 90% of tasks typically handled by college educated professionals. These include jobs in legal research, finance, marketing, and customer service. For example, AI tools are already being deployed to automate paralegal tasks and financial analysis; and some early adopter companies are replacing portions of their human customer support teams with large language model (LLM) chatbots.

From article by Chris Smith, published in BGR on May 22, 2025.

In this post, we are sharing insights from the Chris Smith article referenced below, as it highlights what is widely recognized as the next critical trend in real world AI applications, including AI wearables.

ABSTRACT:

These News Briefs and Decision Summaries are from  the  the New Jersey State Bar Association. They are an exclusive benefit of the Association in partnership with the New Jersey Law Journal. A subscription may be necessary to access the full text of some of the items listed:

NEWS BRIEFS:

Artificial Intelligence: Legal Issues, Policy, and Practical Strategies, Edited by Cynthia H Cwik, Christopher A Suarez, and Lucy L Thomson.

A publication by the American Bar Association.

“This book covers a wide range of important topics concerning AI and the law, and provides practical advice to attorneys on how to navigate these complex and rapidly evolving issues.”

These News Briefs and Decision Summaries are from  the  the New Jersey State Bar Association. They are an exclusive benefit of the Association in partnership with the New Jersey Law Journal. A subscription may be necessary to access the full text of some of the items listed

NEWS BRIEFS:

Unprecedented Mobilization:’ Tidal Wave of Threats Gives Legal Departments Their Biggest Test Since COVID

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