Dive Brief:
- Thomson Reuters announced this week that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Casetext, the legal technology provider behind the generative AI-powered legal assistant known as CoCounsel.
- Thomson Reuters is spending $650 million in cash on the transaction, which is anticipated to close in the second half of 2023, according to a press release. The news comes in the aftermath of Thomson Reuters announcing plans to invest $100 million annually in artificial intelligence, as well as incorporate generative AI into its legal technology product suite.
- Casetext, which was founded in 2013, serves more than 10,000 law firm and corporate legal department customers. In addition to CoCounsel, Casetext also offers a longstanding legal research product.
Dive Insight:
Thomson Reuters’ planned purchase of Casetext furthers its commitment to providing products for legal professionals that use the latest artificial intelligence.
Along those lines, Casetext’s CoCounsel is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 large language model.
The tool is designed to help legal professionals efficiently handle document review, conduct legal research and analyze contracts, among other functionalities.
Casetext was able to develop and refine use cases for legal professionals through its early access to GPT-4, according to a press release about Thomson Reuters’ purchase.
“The acquisition of Casetext is another step in our ‘build, partner and buy’ strategy to bring generative AI solutions to our customers,” said Steve Hasker, Thomson Reuters’ president and CEO, in a prepared statement. “We believe that Casetext will accelerate and expand our market potential for these offerings — revolutionizing the way professionals work, and the work they do.”
In recent weeks, Thomson Reuters also announced it was partnering with Microsoft to support contract drafting capabilities integrated within generative AI-powered Microsoft 365 Copilot.
Also in late May, Thomson Reuters announced plans to incorporate new generative AI capabilities across its legal technology products.
For example, it said Westlaw Precision would be able to help users answer complex legal questions in seconds.
Other products it said would be enhanced through generative AI included Practical Law, Legal Drafting and Legal Document Review and Summary.
As for Casetext, the purchase comes just a couple weeks after the company celebrated its 10th anniversary and amid its plans to roll out new CoCounsel features.
Casetext indicated that working with Thomson Reuters should help it better serve legal professionals and perhaps workers in other industries as well.
"For the last ten years, we have harnessed the power of AI to build products that elevate the practice of law and enable attorneys to serve more people’s legal needs, with the ultimate goal of increasing access to justice," said Jake Heller, Casetext’s CEO, in a prepared statement.
“Joining Thomson Reuters is an incredible opportunity to advance our mission and the field of generative AI solutions exponentially, not only for lawyers but across professions, ensuring this revolutionary technology can benefit as many people as possible,” Heller continued.
