Artificial Intelligence: Lexis

On the Lexis homepage, select Protégé to ask a legal question, generate a draft, summarize a case, or upload documents.

• Ask legal questions conversationally and receive answers with citations and links to LexisNexis content that you can verify and use in your legal research.
• Draft legal arguments, research notes, letters, emails, and clauses.
• Generate a summary of a case, giving an overview of the case, legal reasoning, and its outcome.
• Upload your documents and ask questions about those documents or have Lexis generate a summary of the uploaded documents.

Use these tools to expedite research, but do not rely on them as a substitute for a comprehensive investigation.

The Lexis Protégé product uses “agentic AI” – a technology that can autonomously complete tasks based on user goals, including reviewing its work and identifying improvement areas. It can draft documents, analyze legal data, conduct research, and provide workflow suggestions, significantly improving efficiency and accuracy for legal professionals. Key features include document drafting, legal research, workflow automation, and data analysis. The system can process significantly larger documents than previous versions, handling up to one million characters or approximately 300 pages.

Use the "Ask a Legal Question" task to inquire about a legal topic or issue, such as finding a specific case or legislation. You can ask about the following:

• Legal definitions
• Current law questions
• Procedural inquiries
• More complex legal scenarios  

You can enter up to ten prompts in each conversation. As you submit additional prompts, Lexis evaluates them alongside previous prompts and responses. After receiving the initial reply, Lexis+ AI will present some sample follow-up prompts above the "Ask a Legal Question" field. You may enter up to nine follow-up questions after your initial prompt.

Tips for Creating Prompts 

In Lexis, a prompt is akin to asking questions or providing information during a conversation. For the best results, consider the following tips when formulating prompts:

• Clearly state your goal, e.g., “Draft a letter to my client regarding a retainer agreement.”
• Include any parties, key terms, or legal points relevant to your inquiry.
• Provide material facts and necessary context for a thorough response.
• Specify the type and format of the answer you expect, e.g., “Find statutes in Illinois regarding speed limits on unrestricted highways.”
• Refine your search by submitting follow-up prompts to narrow or expand your query, e.g., “Find more cases like this in Indiana.”

If the response to your first prompt does not meet your expectations, ask a follow-up question that includes additional information.

With the Generate a Draft feature, users can draft the following:

• Legal Arguments
• Research Notes
• Letters
• Emails
• Clauses

Please note that there are examples of the types of prompts that can be used to create a successful draft. Additionally, users can alter the tone of voice in the generated draft. For instance, the following instructions can be entered in the input bar:

• Shorten and simplify.
• Soften tone or make more assertive.
• Explain what changed.

To create the best draft response, follow these suggestions:

• Specify the type of draft you need, such as "Draft a client email explaining the circumstances under which a non-compete agreement will be enforceable against a non-executive-level employee."
• Provide sufficient context and background to help Lexis understand what you want to generate.
• If you do not receive the draft you are seeking, ask a follow-up question with more details.

Use the Summarize a Case task to create an overview of a specific court case's facts, issues, and legal reasoning.

• A summary provides an overview of a case, its legal reasoning, and its outcome.
• Lexis responds best to full citation information (the more specific the citation, the better the response will be).
• Generating a summary of a case using Lexis simplifies the search experience by reducing the need to read through a large case report. 
• The typical summary consists of headings and bullet points describing the case's key aspects.

The Upload to Summarize or Ask a Question task extracts and summarizes key insights from selected documents. Users can upload ten files, with a maximum size of 20MB per file, during a single session.

Once your documents are uploaded, the bottom buttons are active.

• Click on the "ask questions about your uploads" button to ask questions about your documents, e.g., ask Lexis to find the main arguments in the documents.
• Click on the "summarize your uploads" button to have Lexis generate a summary of your uploaded documents.

NOTE: All files are encrypted when uploaded, saved temporarily, and deleted at the end of each session.

TIP: Multiple documents can be selected at once by either dragging and dropping or using the browse function. Hold down the CTRL and SHIFT keys as you would in a file explorer to select them.

Practical Guidance by LexisNexis offers legal professionals comprehensive tools to streamline their practice. It provides step-by-step instructions, checklists, and templates to facilitate efficient legal research and drafting. Users benefit from expert insights that help navigate complex legal issues across various practice areas. The platform is designed to enhance productivity, allowing attorneys to focus more on their clients and less on administrative tasks. Additionally, it features an extensive library of resources that are continually updated to reflect the latest legal developments. Overall, Practical Guidance serves as an invaluable resource for attorneys looking to improve their workflow and deliver high-quality legal services.