At what was billed as an Innovation Summit in its Times Square headquarters yesterday, Thomson Reuters Legal briefed journalists, bloggers and analysts on two products it is unveiling at Legaltech New York next week and also offered tantalizing hints of a product it is developing using the cognitive computing power of IBM’s Watson, the computer that once won Jeopardy!.

No Robo Lawyers

With regard to IBM Watson, TR executives provided only crumbs of details. Last October, TR announced that it had entered into a multi-year agreement with IBM to use the Watson technology to develop and enhance products across all its divisions, not just legal. But TR Legal will be the first to release a product that has Watson “under the hood,” according to Erik Laughlin, managing director, Legal Managed Services and Corporate Segment, and head of the Watson Initiative.

The product will help users untangle the sometimes-confusing web of global legal and regulatory requirements and will be targeted at customers in corporate legal, corporate compliance and law firms. Initially, it will focus on financial services, he suggested, but will also address other domains important to corporations.

More details will be released in the second half of this year, he said, when TR will begin rolling out the product to beta users.

“We’re not setting out in the first instance to build robo lawyers,” Laughlin said. “We’re setting out to amplify the intelligence of our clients.”

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