1 STAFF REPORT
DATE: June 24, 2025
TO: Justin Hess, City Manager
FROM: Joseph H. McDougall, City Attorney
BY: Hazel Turrubiartes, Administrative Officer
SUBJECT: Approval of a Multi-year Subscription Agreement between the City Attorney’s Office and Thomson Reuters, West Publishin g Corporation for Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel Online Legal Research
RECOMMENDATION
Approve a multi-year subscription agreement between the City Attorney’s Office (CAO) and Thomson Reuters, West Publishing Corporation ( West) for Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel online legal research services.
BACKGROUND
The CAO currently staffs 15 attorneys and nine administrative support positions across its three divisions: Litigation, Prosecution, and Departmental Services/Administration.
CAO attorneys conduct legal research daily across a wide range of practice areas. The Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel legal research platform provides tailored research access for each attorney, and each attorney license also grants access to a support staff member.
West has been the preferred online legal research platform for the CAO for several years, offering familiarity and efficiency, particularly when researching new or highly complex legal issues.
DISCUSSION
Currently, the CAO pays $5,500 per month for access to the Westlaw Edge legal research platform without a formal agreement. An enhanced platform, Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel, is now available. The CAO has participated in a demo of the new platform, with select attorneys conducting research on a trial basis. Based on the demo and trial CITY ATTORNEY’S
OFFICE
2 experience, the CAO anticipates that the new research platform will significantly improve the efficiency of legal research and evidence analysis.
Exclusive Key Features of Westlaw Precision with CoCounsel include:
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) -Assisted Research: Allows users to ask legal questions in everyday language, incorporating key facts, procedural details, or legal theories. The system searches Westlaw’s database and provides a summarized response with detailed insights, along with key cases, statutes, and regulations.
• AI Jurisdictional Surveys: Uses generative AI to streamline the process of identifying, analyzing, and comparing statutes and regulations on specific legal questions across jurisdictions.
• Claims Explorer: Employs generative AI to simplify claims and counterclaims research by identifying relevant claims based on facts. • Quick Check Mischaracterization Identification: Detects potential mischaracterizations of the law, misleading omissions, and incorrect holdings within a legal document’s case quotations and surrounding contextual language. • Compare Text Tool: Enables users to compare the language of documents across multiple content sets.
• Table of Contents in Case Law: Facilitates quick navigation within judicial opinions, including synopsis, headnotes, facts, discussions, conclusions, footnotes, and concurring or dissenting opinions.
• West Key Number System: Provides access to a master classification system of U.S. law, widely regarded as the cornerstone of effective legal research. • KeyCite Citator Service: Provides access to a full-service citator that helps users determine whether a proposition is good law by tracing the history of a case, statute, patent, or federal administrative decision. KeyCite also retrieves all citing references, including cases, statutes, administrativ e materials, and secondary sources.
Additional Subscription Benefits:
The subscription will also include access to exclusive content relied upon by CAO attorneys to support the City’s legal needs, including:
• Rutter Practice Guides
• Editorial Enhancements
• American Jurisprudence Full Library (Am Jur)
• American Law Reports (ALR)
• Corpus Juris Secundum (CJS)
• Graphical Statutes/Interactive Timeline
• National Reporter System
3 To upgrade to the new legal research platform, the CAO must enter into a multi -year agreement. By executing the agreement before June 30, 2025, the CAO can take advantage of a promotional offer that reduces the current monthly rate for the first four months of the agreement.
Subscription Cost Breakdown:
Period New Monthly Rate
July 1, 2025 – Oct 31, 2025 $4,830.98/month
Nov 1, 2025 – Oct 31, 2026 $7,425/month
Nov 1, 2026 – Oct 31, 2027 $7,647.75/month
The total increase over the life of the agreement amounts to $46,196.92.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Approval of this multi -year agreement has no potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment, and as such, is not a “project” subject to the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) 14 Cal. Code Regs § 15378.
FISCAL IMPACT
Approximately half of the cost for the agreement will be paid for by Liability Fund 530, as the research is litigation related. The remaining portion will be covered by the CAO’s approved annual budget. Available funds are budgeted accordingly, and the agreement includes a standard non-appropriations clause if funds are unavailable in the future.
CONCLUSION
Staff recommends that the City Council approve a multi -year agreement between Thomson Reuters, West Publishing Corporation and the CAO, as well as authorize the execution of any ancillary documents and amendments as may be approved by the CAO, provided that applicable funds are available and budgeted.
ATTACHMENT
Attachment 1 – Thomson Reuters Order Form and Addendum