🎙️ Ep. 121: Iowa Personal Injury Lawyer Tim Semelroth on AI Expert Testimony Prep, Claude for Legal Research and Client Communications Tech!

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My next guest is Tim Semelroth. Tim is an Iowa personal injury attorney from RSH Legal, who leverages cutting-edge AI tools, including Notebook LM for expert testimony preparation, Claude AI for dictation, and SIO for medical records analysis. He shares practical strategies for maintaining client relationships through e-signatures, texting integration, and automated birthday card systems while embracing legal technology. All this and more, enjoy.

Join Tim Semelroth and me as we discuss the following three questions and more!

  1. What are the top three ways lawyers can leverage AI tools like ChatGPT and Notebook LM to prepare for expert testimony or cross-examination? And how do you ensure client confidentiality when using these tools?

  2. What are the top three technology tools or systems that personal injury attorneys should implement to streamline their practice when handling cases involving trucking accidents, medical records analysis, and insurance negotiations?

  3. What are the top three strategies you recommend for attorneys to maintain personal relationships with clients and community involvement, while also embracing cutting-edge legal technology to improve practice efficiency?

In our conversation, we cover the following:

[00:01:00] Introduction and guest tech setup discussion

[00:02:00] Dell hardware specifications and IT outsourcing strategy

[00:03:00] Smartphone preferences - iPhone 16 and iPad Pro

[00:04:00] Cross-platform compatibility between Windows and Mac environments

[00:05:00] Web-based software solutions for remote work flexibility

[00:06:00] Plaud AI dictation hardware - features and use cases

[00:07:00] Dictation while exercising and driving - mobile workflows

[00:08:00] Essential software stack - File Vine, Lead Docket, and SIO

[00:09:00] AI tools for expert testimony preparation and HIPAA compliance

[00:10:00] Simplifying complex legal language for jury comprehension

[00:11:00] Using AI to brainstorm cross-examination topics and preparation

[00:12:00] Notebook LM audio overview feature for testimony preparation

[00:13:00] Client communication preferences - e-signatures and texting

[00:14:00] File Vine texting integration for client communications

[00:15:00] Case management alerts and notification systems

[00:17:00] Client preferences for phone vs. video communication

[00:18:00] Rural client challenges and electronic communication benefits

[00:20:00] SIO AI platform for medical records analysis

[00:21:00] Medical chronology automation and document management

[00:22:00] Jurisdiction-specific customization for demand letters

[00:23:00] Content repurposing strategy across multiple platforms

[00:24:00] LinkedIn marketing for lawyer referral relationships

[00:25:00] Multi-channel newsletter approach - digital and print

[00:26:00] Print newsletter effectiveness for legal professionals

[00:27:00] SEO benefits and peer recognition from content marketing

[00:28:00] Client communication policy - 30-day contact requirements

[00:29:00] Proactive client outreach through text messaging

[00:30:00] Automated birthday card system for client retention

[00:31:00] The Marv Stallman Rule - personal marketing through cards

[00:32:00] Technology-enabled client relationship management

[00:33:00] Contact information and social media presence

RESOURCES

Connect with Tim!

Hardware mentioned in the conversation

Software & Cloud Services mentioned in the conversation

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📖 Word of the Week: RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) - The Legal AI Breakthrough Eliminating Hallucinations. 📚⚖️

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What is RAG?

USEd responsibly, rag can be a great tool for lawyers!

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is a groundbreaking artificial intelligence technique that combines information retrieval with text generation. Unlike traditional AI systems that rely solely on pre-trained data, RAG dynamically retrieves relevant information from external legal databases before generating responses.

Why RAG Matters for Legal Practice

RAG addresses the most significant concern with legal AI: fabricated citations and "hallucinations." By grounding AI responses in verified legal sources, RAG systems dramatically reduce the risk of generating fictional case law. Recent studies show RAG-powered legal tools produce hallucination rates comparable to human-only work.

Key Benefits

RAG technology offers several advantages for legal professionals:

Enhanced Accuracy: RAG systems pull from authoritative legal databases, ensuring responses are based on actual statutes, cases, and regulations rather than statistical patterns.

Real-Time Updates: Unlike static AI models, RAG can access current legal information, making it valuable for rapidly evolving areas of law.

Source Attribution: RAG provides clear citations and references, enabling attorneys to verify and build upon AI-generated research.

Practical Applications

lawyers who don’t use ai technology like rag will be replaced those who do!

Law firms are implementing RAG for case law research, contract analysis, and legal memo drafting. The technology excels at tasks requiring specific legal authorities and performs best when presented with clearly defined legal issues.

Professional Responsibility Under ABA Model Rules

ABA Model Rule 1.1 (Competence): Comment 8 requires lawyers to "keep abreast of changes in the law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology." This mandates understanding RAG capabilities and limitations before use.

ABA Model Rule 1.6 (Confidentiality): Lawyers must "make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client." When using RAG systems, attorneys must verify data security measures and understand how client information is processed and stored.

ABA Model Rule 5.3 (Supervision of Nonlawyer Assistants): ABA Formal Opinion 512 clarifies that AI tools may be considered "nonlawyer assistants" requiring supervision. Lawyers must establish clear policies for RAG usage and ensure proper training on ethical obligations.

ABA Formal Opinion 512: This 2024 guidance emphasizes that lawyers cannot abdicate professional judgment to AI systems. While RAG systems offer improved reliability over general AI tools, attorneys remain responsible for verifying outputs and maintaining competent oversight.

Final Thoughts: Implementation Considerations

lawyers must consider their ethical responsibilities when using generative ai, large language models, and rag.

While RAG significantly improves AI reliability, attorneys must still verify outputs and exercise professional judgment. The technology enhances rather than replaces legal expertise. Lawyers should understand terms of service, consult technical experts when needed, and maintain "human-in-the-loop" oversight consistent with professional responsibility requirements.

RAG represents a crucial step toward trustworthy legal AI, offering attorneys powerful research capabilities while maintaining the accuracy standards essential to legal practice and compliance with ABA Model Rules. Just make sure you use it correctly and check your work!

ILTACON 2025: Legal AI Revolution Accelerates as Major Providers Unveil Next-Generation Platforms

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Lexis, vlex, westlaw highlight their newest ai functions!

The International Legal Technology Association’s 2025 annual conference (#ILTACON2025) in the National Harbor just outside of Washington, DC, became the epicenter of legal AI innovation as Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis, and vLex/Fastcase showcased their most advanced artificial intelligence platforms. Each provider demonstrated distinct approaches to solving the legal profession's technology challenges, with announcements that signal a fundamental shift from experimental AI tools to enterprise-ready systems capable of autonomous legal workflows.

Thomson Reuters Launches CoCounsel Legal with Groundbreaking Deep Research

Thomson Reuters made headlines with the launch of CoCounsel Legal, featuring what the company positions as industry-leading Agentic AI capabilities. This launch represents a fundamental evolution from AI assistants that respond to prompts toward intelligent systems that can plan, reason, and execute complex multi-step workflows autonomously.

The platform's flagship innovation is Deep Research, an AI feature that conducts comprehensive legal research by leveraging Westlaw Advantage’s proprietary research tools and expert legal content. According to Thomson Reuters, CoCounsel Legal combines advanced generative models with the exclusive resources of Westlaw and Practical Law, aiming to deliver trusted, up-to-date, and relevant legal analysis for practitioners. The company emphasizes that its Agentic AI operates directly within Westlaw, making use of the platform’s curated research toolset and authoritative content to enhance accuracy and reliability in legal workflows.

Thomson Reuters Launches CoCounsel Legal with Groundbreaking Deep Research

Key capabilities include guided workflows for drafting privacy policies, employee policies, complaints, and discovery requests, with Thomson Reuters planning incremental releases of new workflows. The platform addresses the critical challenge of document management system integration through federated search technology, which leverages existing Document Management System (DMS) search systems while applying AI for re-ranking and summarization.

The company also introduced Westlaw Advantage on August 13, 2025, positioned as the final versioned release of Westlaw, with future improvements delivered through continuous updates rather than new license agreements. This shift to a traditional Software-as-a-Service (aka SaaS) delivery model includes multi-year subscriptions with automatic upgrades at no additional cost.

Thomson Reuters has invested $10 billion in transforming legal technology foundations, with over $200 million annually dedicated specifically to integrating AI into flagship products. The platform already serves over 20,000 law firms and corporate legal departments, including the majority of AmLaw 100 firms.

LexisNexis Introduces ProtĂŠgĂŠ General AI with Industry-First Voice Capabilities

LexisNexis announced on August 11, 2025, the preview launch of ProtĂŠgĂŠ General AI, expanding its personalized AI assistant to include secure access to general-purpose AI models alongside legal-specific tools. This development builds on the company's March 2025 launch of the legal industry's first voice-enabled AI assistant for complex legal work. This voice feature allows users to interact naturally with the platform, guiding legal research and drafting by issuing spoken requests. The tool is designed to help legal practitioners streamline routine workflows, surface key insights, and perform drafting and search tasks hands-free, all within a secure and integrated environment.

LexisNexis Introduces ProtĂŠgĂŠ General AI with Industry-First Voice Capabilities

ProtĂŠgĂŠ's key differentiator lies in its toggle functionality, allowing users to switch between authoritative legal AI (grounded in LexisNexis content) and general-purpose AI models including GPT-5*, GPT-4o, GPT-o3, and Claude Sonnet 4. This eliminates the need to switch between different AI tools while maintaining enterprise-grade security.

The platform processes documents up to 300 pages long (a 250% increase over previous limits) and offers unprecedented personalization capabilities. It learns individual user workflows, preferences, writing styles, and jurisdictions to deliver customized responses. The system integrates with document management systems to ground responses in firm-specific knowledge while maintaining strict security controls.

Approximately 200 law firms, corporate legal departments, and law schools are participating in the customer preview program, with general availability expected later in 2025.

vLex Showcases Vincent AI Spring '25 with Studio Workflow Creation

vLex presented its Vincent AI Spring '25 Release at ILTACON 2025, highlighting enhanced agentic capabilities and the introduction of Studio, a platform allowing users to create custom workflows without coding. The company emphasized its data-centric approach, leveraging its billion-document global legal database spanning over 100 countries.

vLex Showcases Vincent AI Spring '25 with Studio Workflow Creation

vLex’s Spring ’25 release also emphasizes its Vincent Tables feature, which allows users to extract and compare key data points across large sets of documents and generate structured outputs like memos. Their General Assist capability supports drafting tasks—such as composing emails and summarizing meeting notes—within Vincent’s secure, enterprise-grade environment. Overall, vLex positions Vincent AI as a comprehensive workflow platform that delivers consistent, authoritative legal insights powered by a global database of over one billion documents from more than 100 jurisdictions.

During ILTACON, vLex also announced the 2025 Fastcase 50 awards, recognizing legal innovation leaders who are "engineering the future of legal practice". The company positioned itself as serving the "engineering minds and visionary leaders driving the legal profession's transformation".

🔎 Feature Comparison: How the Big Three Actually Stack Up

Market Positioning and Strategic Differentiation

The three providers have established distinct market positions based on their 2025 announcements. Thomson Reuters targets enterprise-level implementations, evidenced by multi-year contracts with the U.S. Federal Courts system, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and a focus on consistent, reliable workflows for large-scale legal operations.

LexisNexis emphasizes user experience and personalization, with ProtĂŠgĂŠ designed to understand individual lawyer preferences and adapt to different work styles. The voice interface represents a significant advancement in accessibility and usability, particularly valuable for lawyers with physical accessibility needs or those who prefer natural language interaction.

vLex positions itself as serving both mid-size firms and AmLaw 100 practices, emphasizing comprehensive workflow solutions and global legal coverage. The Studio platform addresses the growing demand for customizable AI workflows tailored to specific practice requirements.

Final Thoughts: Industry Impact and Measurable Results

ILTACON was a great experience - I learned and hope to share a lot!

These ILTACON 2025 announcements demonstrate the maturation of legal AI from experimental tools to platforms delivering measurable business value. Case studies reveal significant cost savings, with startups like OMNIUX reporting monthly savings of $15,000 to $20,000 in legal fees using CoCounsel.

Independent analysis shows that contract review tasks, which previously required two to two and a half hours, can now be completed in 10 minutes, representing productivity improvements of over 90%. Legal professionals report that document analysis tasks requiring days of manual work can now be completed in under an hour.

The competitive landscape now features three mature approaches: Thomson Reuters' enterprise-focused agentic workflows with deep legal research integration, LexisNexis's personalized voice-enabled AI with comprehensive model flexibility, and vLex's comprehensive workflow platform with global legal intelligence.

As legal professionals evaluate these platforms, selection criteria should include firm size, practice areas, existing technology infrastructure, required customization levels, and specific workflow requirements. The legal profession's digital transformation has clearly accelerated beyond the experimental phase, with AI becoming essential infrastructure for competitive legal practice.

But what does this mean for the solo, small-, and medium-size law forms? Stay Tuned as my analysis on that will be posted soon!

Happy Lawyering!

* (Note, the original launch was supposed to include GPT-5 but it has been pulled pending resolution of issues in its program - see MTC: Why "Newer" AI Models Aren't Always Better: The ChatGPT-5 and Apple Intelligence Reality Check for Legal Professionals! for reference).

🎙️ Ep. 114: Unlocking Legal Innovation: AI And IP With Matthew Veale of Patsnap

/ Michael D.J. Eisenberg/

Our next guest is Matthew Veale, a European patent attorney and Patsnap's Professional Systems team member. He introduces the AI-powered innovation intelligence platform, Patsnap. Matthew explains how Patsnap supports IP and R&D professionals through tools for patent analytics, prior art searches, and strategic innovation mapping.

Furthermore, Matthew highlights Patsnap's AI-driven capabilities, including semantic search and patent drafting support, while emphasizing its adherence to strict data security and ISO standards. He outlines three key ways lawyers can leverage AI—note-taking, document drafting, and creative ideation—while warning of risks like data quality, security, and transparency.

Join Matthew and me as we discuss the following three questions and more!

  1. What are the top three ways IP and R&D lawyers can use Patsnap's AI to help them with their work?

  2. What are the top three ways lawyers can use AI in their day-to-day work, regardless of the practice area?

  3. What are the top three issues lawyers should be wary of when using AI?

In our conversation, we covered the following:

[01:07] Matthew Tech Setup

[04:43] Introduction to Pat Snap and Its Features

[13:17] Top Three Ways Lawyers Can Use AI in Their Work

[17:29] Ensuring Confidentiality and Security in AI Tools

[19:24] Transparency and Ethical Use of AI in Legal Practice

[22:13] Contact Information

Resources:

Connect with Matthew:

Hardware mentioned in the conversation:

Software & Cloud Services mentioned in the conversation:

BOLO: LexisNexis Data Breach: What Legal Professionals Need to Know Now—and Why All Lexis Products Deserve Scrutiny!

/ The Tech-Savvy Lawyer.Page/

LAWYERS NEED TO BE BOTH TECH-SAVVY AND Cyber-SavvY!

On December 25, 2024, LexisNexis Risk Solutions (LNRS)—a major data broker and subsidiary of LexisNexis—suffered a significant data breach that exposed the personal information of over 364,000 individuals. This incident, which went undetected until April 2025, highlights urgent concerns for legal professionals who rely on LexisNexis and its related products for research, analytics, and client management.

What Happened in the LexisNexis Breach?

Attackers accessed sensitive data through a third-party software development platform (GitHub), not LexisNexis’s internal systems. The compromised information includes names, contact details, Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, and dates of birth. Although LexisNexis asserts that no financial or credit card data was involved and that its main systems remain secure, the breach raises red flags about the security of data handled across all Lexis-branded platforms.

Why Should You Worry About Other Lexis Products?

LexisNexis Risk Solutions is just one division under the LexisNexis and RELX umbrella, which offers a suite of legal, analytics, and data products widely used by law firms, courts, and corporate legal departments. The breach demonstrates that vulnerabilities may not be limited to one product or platform; third-party integrations, development tools, and shared infrastructure can all present risks. If you use LexisNexis for legal research, client intake, or case management, your clients’ confidential data could be at risk—even if the breach did not directly affect your specific product.

Ethical Implications: ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct

ALL LawyerS NEED TO BE PREPARED TO FighT Data LeakS!

The American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct require lawyers to safeguard client information and maintain competence in technology. Rule 1.6(c) mandates that attorneys “make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.” Rule 1.1 further obligates lawyers to keep abreast of changes in law and its practice, including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology.

In light of the LexisNexis breach, lawyers must:

  • Assess the security of all third-party vendors, including legal research and data analytics providers.

  • Promptly notify clients if their data may have been compromised, as required by ethical and sometimes statutory obligations.

  • Implement additional safeguards, such as multi-factor authentication and regular vendor risk assessments.

  • Stay informed about ongoing investigations and legal actions stemming from the breach.

What Should Legal Professionals Do Next?

  • Review your firm’s use of LexisNexis and related products.

  • Ask vendors for updated security protocols and breach response plans.

  • Consider offering affected clients identity protection services.

  • Update internal policies to reflect heightened risks associated with third-party platforms.

The Bottom Line

The LexisNexis breach is a wake-up call for the legal profession. Even if your primary Lexis product was not directly affected, the interconnected nature of modern legal technology means your clients’ data could still be at risk. Proactive risk management and ethical vigilance are now more critical than ever.