Cecilia AI: How DISCO’s AI Chatbot Can Revolutionise Your Document Review
Introducing Cecilia
On 7 December 2023, DISCO publicly launched Cecilia AI (hereafter referred to as ‘Cecilia’) which is an AI chatbot attempting to transform how lawyers interact with evidence and manage their cases. This innovative tool combines the power of large language models and generative AI, providing unprecedented efficiency and accuracy in legal document review. This is a significant step forward for DISCO users in the legal sector.
What You Need to Know
Cecilia is an AI-powered assistant designed to help lawyers find evidence quickly and easily within their dataset on DISCO.
The Cecilia suite consists of five key products:
Cecilia Q&A
This feature, perhaps an uncharted territory for many legal teams, essentially allows lawyers to ask case-related questions and receive answers from Cecilia along with references to specific documents within the legal team’s DISCO database. For example, a lawyer could ask “What evidence do we have that supports claim X?” and Cecilia would reference the relevant documents and excerpts. In essence, lawyers will be able to quickly obtain key information about their case and draft legal documents because answers can be obtained quickly from the data within a DISCO workspace. Clearly, this represents a major shift from traditional methods that depend on human review and analysis. It’s expected to significantly accelerate the review process.
Also, there is now Cecilia single doc Q&A which allows lawyers to ask questions and receive fact-based answers generated from only that specific document within the document viewer. This feature even works with documents in different languages to enhance document review across multilingual datasets.
This entire feature is also available in the UK and Europe.
Cecilia Timelines
Lawyers can upload a case document to obtain an AI-generated chronology that summarises key facts and helps them to understand their case so they can plan their next steps. Once generated, it’s then possible to link documents to the chronology and filter by issues, witnesses and key dates. Timelines essentially provide an overview of key events and evidence at the start of a case, enabling lawyers to quickly understand their case and make strategic decisions.
This feature is not currently available in the UK and Europe.
Cecilia Auto Review
This is an exciting new feature which is designed to streamline and drastically cut down the time spent on manual first-level review, i.e. the initial review of documents for relevance, privilege and other issues. Lawyers can define specific tags, such as how to identify documents that may be relevant, and Cecilia will then autonomously tag documents and provide detailed justifications for each tagging decision.
However, it is still essential to conduct a second-level review to ensure the results are accurate. Thus, while Cecilia Auto Review makes document review far more efficient than ever before, human oversight is still required before production can begin.
This feature is not currently available in the UK and Europe.
Cecilia Document Summaries
Cecilia also offers an on-the-fly document summary tool which provides users with concise summaries of lengthy, complex or important documents. This feature allows legal teams to quickly grasp the key points of a document without needing to manually read through the entire document. It can be used for any document type within a dataset.
This feature is also available in the UK and Europe.
Cecilia Deposition Summaries
This tool summarises depositions with citations, topics and dates. It assists legal teams in navigating key points and understanding the content of depositions effectively. Unlike document summaries, this feature is specifically designed for summarising deposition content and includes the statements made by witnesses under oath. This tool can be particularly helpful in preparing for court proceedings or negotiations.
This feature is not currently available in the UK and Europe.
Conclusion
Cecilia integrates generative AI in DISCO to enable legal teams to analyse their data and make important decisions for better legal outcomes.
Unlike traditional chatbots that may rely on public data sources or internet-based information, Cecilia is built to generate responses based on a user's private workspace within DISCO's eDisclosure platform. This capability is case-specific and ensures that lawyers receive responses which are relevant to their matter, making Cecilia a powerful tool for legal analysis and case strategy.
Furthermore, Cecilia is designed to be secure and scalable by ensuring that data remains protected within DISCO and offering features that significantly enhance the efficiency of document review workflows.
When using any form of generative AI it’s important to use it responsibly. There is a saying which is believed to have been coined by Albert Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. In the context of using generative AI in eDisclosure, this could imply that you should avoid asking repetitive and unproductive questions which can lead to stagnation and ultimately result in the demise of your experience with generative AI on your matters. However, it’s certainly best practice to review and evaluate the responses provided by generative AI to ensure accuracy and relevance.