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AI-Assisted Legal Research for Tribunal Staff

Research & Development · Inform

What it collects

Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Westlaw's curated legal corpus — including case law, statutes, regulations, and secondary sources — forms the primary runtime knowledge base. This is not personal data.
About behaviour
Anonymized data
  • Natural-language queries typed by GC employees into the platform at runtime. These queries are not linked to personal identifiers according to the register entry, which states no personal information is involved.
Run by
Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada (ATSSC)
Where
No fixed location
Kept
Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with
Accountable organization, Vendor

What it is for

Research & DevelopmentInform

Westlaw AI is an AI-augmented legal research tool used by Government of Canada employees at the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada. It uses a large language model to answer natural-language legal questions, generate summaries with citations, and surface relevant case law. The system does not process personal information, and users are informed that AI is in use.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Westlaw's curated legal corpus — including case law, statutes, regulations, and secondary sources — forms the primary runtime knowledge base. This is not personal data.
About behaviour
Anonymized data
  • Natural-language queries typed by GC employees into the platform at runtime. These queries are not linked to personal identifiers according to the register entry, which states no personal information is involved.

Processing

Language Models
  • A large language model layered on Westlaw's curated legal content answers natural-language queries, generates summaries with citations, and produces litigation analytics. WestSearch Plus and related NLP models are also involved.
Classification & Prediction
  • KeyCite Overruling Risk and other predictive models classify and score legal authorities based on relationships within the legal corpus — flagging cases at risk of being overruled and predicting litigation outcomes.

What it does

Understanding (Semantic AI)
Human decides
  • The system pulls meaning from natural-language legal queries, retrieves relevant passages from Westlaw's curated legal corpus, and returns matches and summaries. All decisions about how to use the results remain with the human researcher.
Creating (Generative AI)
Human decides
  • The large language model generates new text in the form of legal summaries, citation-backed answers, and litigation analytics narratives. The output is advisory — tribunal staff decide how to act on the generated content.
Deciding (Analytical AI)
Human decides
  • Predictive features such as KeyCite Overruling Risk score and rank legal authorities and predict litigation outcomes from structured data within the legal corpus. Results are presented to researchers for their own judgment.

Outputs

Generated content
Anonymized data
  • The platform produces AI-generated legal summaries, citation-backed answers to natural-language questions, and jurisdictional law surveys. This content is advisory and does not name individuals.
A recommendation or prediction
Anonymized data
  • Litigation analytics outputs — including overruling-risk scores and predicted case outcomes — are presented as recommendations to tribunal staff, who exercise independent legal judgment on all matters.

Run by

Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada (ATSSC)
  • The federal department that deploys and operates Westlaw AI for Government of Canada employees supporting administrative tribunals.

GC AI Register — Westlaw AI

Built by

Thomson Reuters
  • Thomson Reuters builds and licenses the Westlaw Edge AI platform, supplying the underlying large language model and curated legal content that powers the system.

GC AI Register — Westlaw AI

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization
  • All legal content and AI-generated outputs remain within the Westlaw platform and are available to the deploying organization (ATSSC) and its GC employee users. The register confirms all content is maintained within the Westlaw platform.
Available to vendor
  • As the platform provider, Thomson Reuters has access to the content and models within the Westlaw platform. The register notes all content is maintained within the Westlaw platform, implying vendor-side access to the infrastructure.

Stored

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

How to read the colours

Can it identify you?

Anonymized data
Data about people with the link to who is broken. Stripped of identifiers, blurred, aggregated, or noised so this system can’t reasonably tie a record back to an individual.
Pseudonymous data
Each person’s data is tied to a token (hash, ID, template) that lets this system recognise the same person across events, but the token itself doesn’t reveal a name. Reidentification is possible with extra information.
Identifiable data
The data either contains a direct identifier (name, address, account name, recognisable face or voice, plate number) or carries a token this system uses to look up legal identity during processing.

Who completes the loop?

Human decides
This mode suggests; a person decides what to do next. The AI is always advisory — a human is in the loop on every decision. Example: a triage tool ranks cases for a clinician who chooses which to see first.
Human executes
This mode decides; a person carries out the result. Example: an optimizer plans the day’s trash-collection routes, and drivers run them.
Autonomous
This mode decides and acts on its own. No person reviews each decision or carries out the resulting action.

Definitions from the DTPR standard. Amber is about your data, violet about who decides. The fuller the shape and the deeper the colour, the more identifying the data or the less a person is involved.

What you can do

Ask about this system

Questions go to the Helpful Places, not the vendor.

Your rights

  • Right to Be Informed of AI UseGC employees using this platform are informed that AI is in use, as confirmed in the register. The system's AI-assisted nature is disclosed to users at point of use.
  • Right to Algorithmic TransparencyThe register confirms AI use is disclosed. Users are entitled to know the general logic of how Westlaw AI produces results — that it uses an LLM layered on a curated legal corpus with NLP-based classification and prediction models.

Risks and safeguards

  • Reputational harmAI-generated legal summaries or citation-backed answers could contain hallucinations or errors, potentially leading to flawed legal reasoning if accepted uncritically.Safeguard: all outputs are advisory; GC employees retain full responsibility for legal conclusions, and the platform provides supporting citations that allow users to verify source material directly.