Ep 297: CoCounsel's Next Generation: Emily Colbert and Rawia Ashraf on Agentic AI for Lawyers

If generative AI was the biggest story in legal tech in 2023 and 2024, agentic AI is proving to be the most talked-about topic of 2025. Spurring this, at least in part, has been Thomson Reuters' announcement of its forthcoming release of a new agentic version of CoCounsel, its AI legal assistant, that will be able to plan, reason and execute complex multi-step workflows for legal professionals. On this episode of LawNext, we will dive deep into this next generation of AI legal assistants with two guests who are at the forefront of this field, leading the development of CoCounsel's next generation: Emily Colbert and Rawia Ashraf. Both joined Thomson Reuters back in 2013 through its acquisition of Practical Law, where they cut their teeth building practice-focused products for lawyers. Now, they are leading the charge on the evolution of CoCounsel into a new generation of agentic workflows, with Colbert overseeing CoCounsel's litigation portfolio, while Rawia heading up product development for the transactional and corporate side. In today's conversation, we'll explore how AI is moving beyond simple question-and-answer chatbots to become something more like a smart associate that can chain together multiple tasks, research cases, draft documents, and walk through complex legal workflows step by step. We'll also talk about the challenges of bringing cutting-edge technology to a profession that values precision and trust, learn more about what's coming this summer in CoCounsel's next major release for legal professionals, and get Colbert's and Ashraf's thoughts on how all of this will reshape the practice of law.    Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). Paxton, Rapidly conduct research, accelerate drafting, and analyze documents with Paxton. What do you need to get done today?,    If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.