Zarwin Baum

Zarwin Baum, a Philadelphia-based litigation firm with over 60 years of experience and offices across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, faced a compounding efficiency problem endemic to plaintiff-side litigation: attorneys were spending entire workdays manually reviewing thousands of pages of medical records and discovery documents. Case evaluations that required synthesizing voluminous records — a prerequisite for settlement negotiations and litigation strategy — routinely took close to a week. In a profession where billable time and client responsiveness are competitive differentiators, this administrative burden delayed decisions, strained client relationships, and left the firm vulnerable to better-resourced defense teams moving faster.

Zarwin Baum adopted Thomson Reuters CoCounsel Legal, a generative AI platform built on large language models and designed specifically for the legal profession's strict confidentiality requirements. The firm integrated CoCounsel with their existing Westlaw subscription and document management system, ensuring attorneys could work within familiar workflows rather than switching between tools. Onboarding was supported by a dedicated Thomson Reuters implementation team. Attorneys were trained to use CoCounsel across a range of tasks: medical record review, discovery document analysis, case summarization, settlement budget preparation, and legal research. The closed, secure architecture — with data processed inside Thomson Reuters' controlled environment — addressed firm leadership's data security concerns and was central to achieving firm-wide buy-in.

The efficiency gains were immediate and substantial. Medical records review dropped from a full day to 20–30 minutes per matter, and discovery case evaluations that previously required nearly a week were completed within hours. Beyond raw speed:

• Attorneys report improved client responsiveness and faster settlement negotiations
• The firm identified a competitive advantage over defense firms not yet using AI-assisted review
• GenAI handles administrative summarization and budget drafting, freeing attorneys to focus on case strategy and client advocacy
• Firm leadership, including shareholders, adopted the tool — not just junior associates — signaling broad cultural acceptance

• Security architecture is the prerequisite, not an afterthought — law firms will not adopt AI tools that cannot demonstrably protect client confidentiality; a closed-system vendor with legal-specific compliance credibility accelerates internal approval.
• Integration with existing tooling drives adoption — connecting CoCounsel to Westlaw and the existing document management system meant attorneys extended familiar workflows rather than learning a parallel system.
• Start with the highest-volume, most time-consuming task — medical records review offered the clearest before/after contrast and built internal credibility for broader rollout.
• Measure competitive positioning, not just internal efficiency — plaintiff firms gain leverage when they can evaluate and respond to discovery faster than defense counsel.