This year, Thomson Reuters Westlaw (which we’ll just refer to as Thomson Reuters Legal because, after all, that is what it will probably be rebranded as, with Tax & Accounting and Markets being the other brands) is poised to release a new version of Westlaw dubbed “Cobalt.” If you know what WALT means, then you’re old enough to appreciate how far Westlaw has come since the golden days of dial-up. And from what I can gather, Cobalt promises to be a huge step for CALR.
Here’s what we know about the new platform:
- Improved search engine.
- Easy to use. Think Googlesque. It is afterall, designed for the current generation and not “your dad’s army.”
- “Community insights.” I have no idea what this means, but it could hint towards social, which also might suggest an API.
- Somehow “optimizes” research workflow.
- Quick results. Think Loislaw maybe? Or perhaps they simply won’t throttle the return on results for the up-to 30,000 concurrent users so their experience is the same no matter what time of the day?
- “Nearly all high-value content exposed and used.” I’m assuming this means that you will now have access to most of TRL’s catalog, perhaps even backlisted items.
- Allows user to use common terms to search multiple databases. In other words, boolean search is history, and hello NLP.
- Learns from community. The example given is this: “if a particular research around bankruptcy results in people looking at a particular case and that case was really tangential, but not direct to the search, over time, as that case becomes more and more accessed, it will move higher and higher up in terms of the search criteria and selection that is provided to the user.” Source. Hopefully it will be able to learn in other ways.
Here’s what hasn’t been said.
- How are results presented?
- Are they still viewing Results Plus as an application, or is it incorporated into the results?
- Does my login still define my database collection?
- How much is the system relying on opencalais for improving semantic search? How much time will it take for the system to learn, and eventually when over the hearts of boolean diehards? For more on opencalais, check this video.
- What are “community insights”? Is there an expectation of customer engagement through the portal?
- Is everything still behind a walled garden, or does Cobalt have some windows?
- Will Cobalt leverage citations in briefs as a means for determining relevancy?
- Does Cobalt bring law, financial, and news together in one offering, as speculated by others?
- Does Cobalt come with a new pricing structure? One would think not because it is described as a “new search tool and design layout.” But then it is suggested that the platform will help the company “justify premium pricing,” presumably by quickly showing more and more relevant results. Not sure, but it’s a guess.
- Will there be an iPhone app? Or, is it optimized for mobility?
- In an effort to increase lawyers’ engagement with the site, will Cobalt be delivering video or other multimedia feeds alongside search results?
- Does Cobalt tap into the free web and return those results as well?
I can go on because there’s actually a great deal more TR has done on the Markets side that makes sense for Legal. Although it would appear the wait isn’t going to be that long, it sure would be nice to have a few more details now. For less information than what I’ve provided you but an opportunity to find out when Cobalt launches, go visit the pre-launch site here.
You must log in to post a comment.