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Commissioners approve $35,000 Westlaw AI add-on for county law department amid public cautions
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Summary
Hudson County commissioners approved adding a $35,000 Westlaw ‘CoCounsel’ subscription for the county law department, while residents and some commissioners urged caution about data sharing, accuracy and staff impacts and one commissioner abstained on the item.
Hudson County commissioners approved an amendment to a law-department contract that adds a $35,000 West Publishing subscription to provide Westlaw’s AI-assisted feature called “CoCounsel,” an official said. The amendment covers the subscription through June 30, 2027.
County law-department representative (speaker 11) told the board the tool is an add-on feature intended to summarize large volumes of legal documents and speed legal research: “it allows summarizing … it also allows templates to be generated,” and the use is limited to legal matters and organized to comply with American Bar Association guidance, the representative said. He added the tool is “approved by the American Bar Association” and framed it as a productivity aid for litigation review rather than a general-purpose county AI deployment.
The discussion that preceded the vote included commissioners and members of the public who cautioned about broader risks of AI. Courtney Walker (resident of Jersey City, speaker 9) said AI “is often wrong, and so sometimes it'll spit things out,” and urged the county to adopt an AI policy before entering new contracts. Other public commenters — including software engineers and cybersecurity professionals — warned about data sharing, privacy and possible downstream impacts on jobs.
During roll-call voting on the consent agenda that included the Westlaw amendment, multiple commissioners recorded votes in the affirmative. One commissioner explicitly abstained on the Westlaw item (speaker 5 stated “I'll abstain”), and at least one commissioner voiced opposition specifically to item 27 before the motion carried. The county representative said the system will be used only by the law department for litigation and legal-research tasks, not for surveillance or law-enforcement tracking.
County staff listed the contract’s cost and term during the presentation and noted the feature is intended to reduce the time required to analyze large document productions in civil litigation. The administration did not state that the subscription would replace existing staff; the law-department representative said the tool “makes things happen much quicker” but is not intended to supplant employees.
The board approved the consent agenda, which contained the Westlaw amendment, with the item recorded as passed for the law department. The administration said it would follow internal policies and oversight regarding any AI tools used in county operations.
What happens next: the subscription will be added under the county’s West Publishing contract through June 30, 2027, and the law department said it has created an internal AI policy aligned with American Bar Association guidance.
