Case study
CoCounsel jumpstarts case preparation to enhance client outcomes at DUVADIE Law Profesional Corporation
CoCounsel empowers the specialist criminal, family, immigration, and AI law firm to work more efficiently, build strong arguments with confidence, focus on strategic thinking, and take on more cases
About DUVADIE Law
Ontario-based DUVADIE Law specializes in criminal, family, and immigration law, with a focus on litigation. It is increasingly expanding its practice into AI policy and search, and its privacy implications. The firm has always been tech-forward, embracing tools that drive efficiency and enable lawyers to focus on the intellectual aspects of their work. Having taken an early interest in AI, the firm now incorporates artificial intelligence into its working practices.
30–40%
Average time savings on case preparation
33–50%
Less prep time now required for each day of trial
50%
Reduction in processes such as document review
The challenge: Accelerating critical tasks
Case preparation is complex and time-consuming. DUVADIE Law’s lawyers must manually review hundreds or even thousands of documents such as bank statements, financial data, emails, text messages, and social media activity to understand the issues, gather evidence, verify allegations, create timelines, and develop their arguments and tactics. By harnessing AI to accelerate reviews and research — and provide fast, accurate summaries and insights — more time could be spent developing strategy that builds stronger cases faster with better negotiation power. The result is cost savings for clients and less pressure on lawyers.
The firm was using other publicly available AI tools for generic purposes, but it wanted a suitable AI solution specifically for legal use. It wanted one that would treat confidential information securely with intel from verifiable legal resources. Already satisfied users of Westlaw, the firm knew CoCounsel was the logical choice.
“I’ve always been interested in technology and tools that make legal operations more efficient, so my colleagues and I can do more intellectual — rather than routine — work and more strategic thinking. With CoCounsel, we can establish more quickly what the facts are.”
Ashish (“ASH”) Duvadie
Barrister & Solicitor, DUVADIE Law Professional Corporation
The solution: Trustworthy, secure, and versatile AI
DUVADIE Law selected CoCounsel because it is a Thomson Reuters product designed specifically for legal professionals with trusted results and robust security. “We’ve had Westlaw for some time, and we like the breadth of those resources. We like the integration with CoCounsel and the fact that it’s geared toward lawyers and developed by a long-established company with a good reputation,” says Ash Duvadie. “We need it to be cybersecure, and we don’t want any hallucinations happening.”
CoCounsel offers an impressive range of features and functionality. As well as analyzing large volumes of documents and data quickly, conducting reliable research with citations, and creating accurate summaries and drafts, it’s also proving valuable for generating timelines of events and automatically categorizing and indexing documents. It acts like a legal assistant for a wide variety of tasks, and more use cases are becoming apparent over time.
Outcomes: Increased capacity, more peace of mind
Duvadie Law’s rule of thumb has always been that every day of trial requires one-and-a-half to two days of preparation. But with CoCounsel, he estimates that this has been reduced to a day of prep per trial day, equating to around 30 to 40% savings on case preparation time. By using CoCounsel to double-check their reasoning, lawyers gain greater peace of mind in their decision-making.
When it comes to other tasks such as document review and analysis, the efficiency gains are even greater — up to 50%. For example, when a client requires an urgent visa submission, the firm organized and analyzed all the necessary documents, created a timeline of actions and deadlines, pinpointed issues, and delivered the submission on time. Overall, it spent less than four hours on processes that previously took eight. “That’s a big time-saver for clients,” Ash Duvadie says.
“CoCounsel gives us a leg up, so we can serve our clients even better. If you’re well-prepared coming into a trial, then you will have a stronger case. Or in a negotiation, you can maybe settle things faster.” These efficiency gains mean DUVADIE Law can take on more cases, provide lawyers with a better work-life balance, and reduce stress in an area of law that is inherently very demanding. The result is clear — the benefits go far beyond the financial.
