Better litigation through faster access to authority

At Helix Law, implementing the latest technology has always been central to how the Brighton-based firm sets itself apart. That mindset came from founder Jonathan Waters, who established the firm with the belief that “technology is where you get an edge. Where you get better service, you get better results”.

As Lexis+ with Protégé began to show clear practical value, Helix saw it as the logical next step in the firm’s ongoing effort to improve litigation workflows.

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Efficient identification of the right legal source

Helix had already moved its legal research online, using cloud systems and Lexis+ Legal Research to bring its litigation resources into one place. But despite this improvement, a key challenge remained. Waters wanted his team to reduce the time they spent finding the right authority and improve the quality of the arguments they built around it.

He knew the material was in the digital library, but getting to the right case at the right moment still took time. For Waters, AI started to make a difference when it proved its ability to help lawyers find, check and use trusted legal content more efficiently.

Choosing the right legal AI solution

Searching for something specific as he scanned the legal AI market, Waters was after a tool grounded in authoritative legal content, that was easy to use in practice and built in a way that allowed lawyers to trace answers back to source.

Waters lists three things that made Lexis+ with Protégé stand out. “One, it has such a great core legal database. Two, it’s a very easy AI interface and three, it cites with background authorities - making it incredibly easy to check”.

Citation traceability was central to the tool’s value within a human-led workflow. AI could speed up the first pass, but lawyers still needed to test the reasoning, verify the source and stand behind the final output. Citations made that possible, giving the team a quick way to check the answer and trust what they were using.

A human-led workflow built around trusted authority

Since Helix began using Lexis+ with Protégé, they have encouraged lawyers to see it as a companion to human judgement. Never a replacement for the lawyer’s expertise, it sits inside an iterative workflow. Waters explains how his team:

1. Asks the question in plain language
2. Reviews the AI-outputted answer
3. Checks the cited authorities
4. Produces an output that is “human led”

For example, in construction adjudication, lawyers are often looking for the legal principle as well as the authority that supports or rebuts it in closely comparable facts. Lexis+ with Protégé has materially changed that process: “You can simply ask a well-structured question about that point of law and very quickly surface the case that deals with or rebuts it. And even better, you can even narrow it to a particular set of facts”.

In contentious work, this speed and precision are critical. Waters says, in some cases, using Lexis+ with Protégé “could be the difference between having that source and winning the case and not having the source and losing”.

The biggest gain is quality, not just time

While AI is often discussed in terms of efficiency, Waters sees its biggest gains in three areas:

1. Improved quality of work outputs: “We make fewer mistakes, make better points and are more comprehensible in our arguments”.
2. Improved quality of employee satisfaction: “We’re talking much more about the law and the high-level strategy than we are about process and documents”. Helix’s lawyers spend less time trawling for the right authority and more time on the parts of the job they enjoy most: judgment, strategy, and clear advice.
3. Improved quality of client service: “It’s time we can feed back into the relationship”. In practice, that means faster answers, stronger support and more meaningful access to advisers without costs escalating unnecessarily.

Beyond this, Waters says that Helix’s integration of Lexis+ with Protégé supports the firm’s talent acquisition and retention model. He says, “An employee able to leverage with AI is more profitable. Therefore, you’d want more of those people rather than fewer”. When referencing the profitability impact of Lexis+ with Protégé, Waters notes “Helix law has earnings per fee earner of roughly double” in comparison to peer firms.

“You end up with happier lawyers and happier clients. That’s good for business”.

For Helix Law, the value of Lexis+ with Protégé lies in helping lawyers get to the right authority faster, test their thinking more rigorously and move with greater confidence in high-stakes disputes. In a boutique litigation practice built on precision, turning trusted knowledge into high-quality outputs sharpens its commercial edge.