In a serious injury claim, it is essential to go through the details and find the important points. It might be one line in a medical record, a detail that needs checking, or a legal authority buried in pages of case law. For Minster Law’s file handlers, this kind of careful review is part of everyday casework, requiring close attention to complex material and the client information behind it.
Given the sensitivity of the work, Minster Law needed to be careful about how it used legal AI. Any tool had to help teams review large volumes of material without putting client data, source checking or legal judgement at risk.
Lexis+® with Protégé™ gave the firm a secure, source-backed way to support that review. Across personal injury and serious injury matters, it is helping teams move through research, document review and analysis more efficiently, while keeping client care at the centre.
Watch the 1-minute video case study to learn more
Choosing AI meant choosing who to trust
Craig Gilchrist, Director of Technology and Digital Platforms, describes a pragmatic approach to AI adoption. Minster Law is building its own tools where its data and experience give it an advantage, while relying on trusted industry providers for capabilities it could not easily recreate itself.
Legal content sat firmly in the second category. Minster Law could develop tools around its own processes and data, but it could not recreate the depth of LexisNexis’ legal content, citations and jurisdictional understanding. That made choosing Lexis+ with Protégé a simple decision. Gilchrist expands:
“Having that legal proprietary database as the foundation of your models and your understanding made it an absolute simple decision for us.
Trustworthy outputs is one of our highest priorities alongside confidentiality, data governance. We’re really quite risk averse when it comes to our clients and our client data. And that includes things like hallucinations and precedent and citations.”
Gilchrist knew the tool would only work if people trusted the way it was being used. That meant clear use cases, checked outputs and lawyers staying in control of the final judgement:
“For anyone who’s hesitant in adopting Protégé, I would say start with the governance first and the structures. This isn’t a software roll out; this is a people and change roll out. So, start with a few key use cases, get the people on board and then let those people really drive the change with the results that they’re seeing.”
Building confidence in Protégé through governance
For Ashley Bennett, Senior Operational Team Leader at Minster Law, client confidence had to be built into the way Protégé was used from the start.
Before looking at wider rollout, Minster Law put clear safeguards around client data and informed consent in line with their obligations under the GDPR / Data Protection Act. The firm obtains informed consent, logs that consent, and limits use to approved areas such as quantum analysis, medical record summarisation and liability assessment. Users also complete a form so activity can be dip-checked, helping protect clients, colleagues and the business.
Bennett says that approach has been well received by clients:
“Our consent ratios are currently about 97%.”
With those controls in place, Minster Law then tested where Protégé could add the most value. Bennett explains:
That process helps reduce the uncertainty that can come with encountering a new issue early in a legal career.
“We replicated sets of work through Lexis+ with Protégé that we'd already completed manually. We could compare the outputs and see what work streams worked for us.”
The results were compelling:
“On average, we see a time saving of about 78% across the tasks that we’ve greenlit. Reviewing large documents is about a 45% time saving.”
Those savings sit within a controlled workflow. Protégé supports the team, but responsibility stays with Minster Law’s people. Outputs are still checked, and professional legal judgement remains with the file handlers.
Helping file handlers verify legal answers
For James Barker, a serious injury file handler, the value of Protégé is felt in the detail of live casework. He uses the tool to support document review, legal research, drafting and consistency checks:
“Being able to check the legal research notes that it generates, but also click the hyperlinks with the citations allows us to make sure that the information provided is accurate to the question that we asked.”
The difference is particularly noticeable when dealing with lengthy authorities and complex documents. He says:
“I don’t have to trawl through pages and pages of documents to find a single line of a judgement. Protégé finds that for us, which makes the cases much more efficient and enjoyable to run from our perspective.”
In turn, time saved on administrative review, document checking and research-heavy drafting gives him more space for client contact and practical support:
“I can spend more time with my clients actually making sure that their needs are met.”
Confidence that keeps people at the centre
The thread running through Minster Law’s use of Protégé is confidence. The firm can see where answers come from, keep sensitive information within a governed process and leave final judgement with the people responsible for each file.
Confidence in AI tools changes the broader impact of time savings. Time recovered from document review and research can be spent where clients feel it most: in clearer advice, better conversations and practical support. As Gilchrist says:
“Ironically, as an AI product, it actually allows our people to spend more time doing human things with clients because it removes the friction and the robotic elements of some of their work.”
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