KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 2 -- Global legal tech giant LexisNexis today launched Lexis+ AI with Protégé Malaysia, a personalised artificial intelligence assistant tailored for the Malaysian legal system, promising to streamline tedious legal work while ensuring accuracy and security.
The launch comes with a stark warning about the risks of using generic AI in the legal profession.
Gaythri Raman, managing director of LexisNexis Southeast Asia and India, noted that lawyers are already getting into trouble for citing AI-generated "hallucinations."
"In the past year alone, over 400 cases have been documented globally where lawyers cited fictitious, AI-generated authorities in court -- and half of them came from the US," she said, highlighting a major pitfall the new tool is designed to avoid.
That, she explained, is where Protégé stands apart. The platform is locally grounded in trusted sources like the Malayan Law Journal, and all chats are encrypted, with data purged after log-out to ensure client confidentiality.
"Every legal professional will have a virtual AI assistant who understands you... We don't retain your data, we don't use it to train our machines.
"That's how seriously we take accuracy, privacy and security," Gaythri said.
Protégé is designed to handle tasks from document analysis to intelligent drafting. Key features include generating visual timelines from case documents, suggesting follow-up queries, and securely managing files in its Protégé Vault. Its drafting function even self-reviews its output to flag inconsistencies.
Early testers have praised its efficiency. Hannah Ariffin, assistant manager of legal at MAMEE-Double Decker, noted that Protégé could extract favourable terms from contracts in seconds, a task that would normally take hours.
The Malaysia launch follows successful rollouts in the US, UK, Hong Kong, and Australia. It arrives as local law firms and in-house counsels face increasing pressure to deliver more with less, making AI a crucial tool for competitiveness.
For Gaythri, Protégé should be seen not as a threat but as a partner for legal professionals.
"It's a game changer. Imagine having a trusted buddy by your side -- that's what Protégé is designed to be," she said.