The Problem
This firm is a specialist publisher of books and software for lawyers, 30 years in the field, with a library that solicitors, barristers and judges rely on. But users could only search that content by keyword. Type in a word or a case name and you got back hundreds of results, ranked by book rather than relevance. Ask a real question in plain English and you got nothing.
At the same time, competitors were adding AI search to their own products. Most of it wasn't very good, but it pulled customers to them anyway. And it left the firm, with the best content in its field, looking like the one that was behind.
There was a catch, though. In law, an AI that invents a case is worse than no AI at all. A single made-up citation can mislead a court, and the firm had spent 30 years earning its readers' trust. Off-the-shelf tools that make things up were a non-starter. The firm knew it needed AI, and was right to be wary of it. "There are still nerves around using AI in legal research," its Head of Content told us.
What We Built
The answers were already in the firm's own documents. Our job was to get them out. We built an AI answer tool on top of the firm's existing search. A lawyer asks a question in plain English and gets a short, written answer above the usual results. Every keyword search still works underneath. It runs in the EU and plugs into the existing platform, so nothing changed about how subscribers use the site.
The hard part was trust, and it's where most AI fails. The moment it invents something, people stop relying on it. We designed the tool so it can't. Its answers come only from the firm's own expert-authored content, never the open web. It works from real sources in the library instead of inventing them. Every claim links straight to its source, so a lawyer can check it in one click. And we tested it against a bank of questions we already knew the answers to, tuning until its answers stayed true to the sources.
The Results
We went from brief to a product real lawyers could test in six weeks. "We've never seen speed like that with any of our updates," the Head of Content said.
The reaction was immediate. A Court of Appeal judge called it "a fantastic piece of software." A solicitor trialling it said it was "absolutely brilliant and is really increasing my efficiency and productivity at work." One user now opens it first thing every morning, before starting work. Across trial users, 97.8% came back week after week.
The nerves the firm started with were gone. "It's been built in such a way that there's confidence in what they've done," the Head of Content said. "They've used our source material really effectively."
The firm had asked us to build one feature. On the strength of it, they moved their entire platform onto us.
"If a board member asked whether the investment was worth it, I'd say 100%." — Head of Content
