New Protégé General AI Allows Legal Professionals to Use Both Legal AI and General-Purpose AI Models in Secure Legal Workflow

Legal professionals have rapidly adopted AI tools for research and drafting work, but they have so far been forced to navigate between multiple solutions if they want to leverage both industry-specific and general-purpose tools. For example, they might use Lexis+ AI® for specialized legal research, ChatGPT for general tasks and Claude for brainstorm sessions. 

This fragmented approach can erode productivity gains from AI, but more importantly it can introduce serious risks when sensitive legal information moves across platforms. 

LexisNexis® has resolved this problem by blazing a new trail: General-purpose AI models are now accessible within the security of the Lexis+ AI environment, fundamentally changing how legal professionals can leverage AI in their daily practices. 

Introducing Protégé General AI 

We recently launched Protégé™ General AI in our award-winning Lexis+ AI solution, which allows users to select the underlying large language model (LLM) to power LexisNexis Protégé, the personalized AI assistant. This new functionality is purpose-built for legal professionals and was designed for the multi-faceted nature of how lawyers work today. 

Protégé Legal AI continues to provide the trusted, LexisNexis-grounded responses lawyers are accustomed to, optimized for legal accuracy with Shepard's® Citations Service integration. This remains the go-to option for traditional legal research, drafting legal documents and analyzing case law. 

Now with a simple drop-down, legal professionals can switch to Protégé General AI to conduct a wider range of everyday tasks that are powered by the latest models from OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as open-web sources. This additional capability is integrated into a single environment, allowing legal professionals to select the optimal AI configuration for each task while maintaining the enterprise-grade security, user privacy and reliability that legal work demands. 

The integrated General AI models include: 

• Claude Sonnet 4 (Natural Fluency): Provides thoughtful, well-structured responses with natural fluency, ideal for everyday communication and brainstorming tasks that require a diplomatic touch. 

• GPT-5 (Unified Reasoning): The latest model from OpenAI, which combines strong general knowledge and conversational ability with deep analytical thinking, making it suited for strategic exploration and refining complex arguments. LexisNexis is among the first companies to integrate this model through its direct collaboration with OpenAI. 

• GPT-4o (General Exploration): Offers fast, conversational responses ideal for brainstorming, client communications and everyday tasks. Whether drafting professional emails or summarizing complex documents for partners, this configuration prioritizes speed and natural language. 

• OpenAI o3 (Advanced Reasoning): Delivers deliberate, analytical responses using OpenAI's Deep Research, a sophisticated AI capability designed for complex research tasks. It excels at issue spotting, exploring hypotheticals and framing legal strategies, which are particularly valuable when working through multi-step problems or analyzing fact patterns. 

The transparent labeling system in Protégé General AI ensures that users always know which model is generating responses, preserving the professional judgment and source verification that remains central to the practice of law. Moreover, users have the option of adding multi-vendor model choices to provide even greater choices, flexibility and transparency of results. 

The rollout of Protégé General AI represents a recognition that modern legal practice requires specialized legal AI for authoritative legal research, drafting and insights — as well as general-purpose AI tools for the full spectrum of legal work. With this new general-purpose AI access added to the industry-leading legal AI functionality in Protégé, legal professionals can undertake a wider range of AI-powered tasks without ever leaving the trusted, secure Lexis+ AI environment. 

Practical Use Cases for Lawyers 

Protégé General AI was designed for the rigors and privacy demands of legal work, going beyond what general-purpose AI tools can provide. This gives users the flexibility to use General AI as an idea springboard, conduct Deep Research to independently discover and reason leveraging diverse insights from across the web, draft communications intended for both legal and non-legal audiences, enrich legal work with real-world context, and break down highly complex problems. 

The versatility of these model options comes to life when considering everyday legal practice scenarios. For example: 

• A corporate attorney handling an M&A transaction might use GPT-5 to learn about complex regulatory implications, switch to Legal AI for specific Delaware corporate law research, then use Claude Sonnet 4 to draft client communications explaining the deal structure in accessible language. 

• A litigator might leverage OpenAI o3’s analytical capabilities to spot potential issues in discovery documents, use GPT-4o to craft a status update for stakeholders, and then rely on Legal AI for precedent research and motion drafting. 

• A regulatory lawyer might use web search to gather current industry information and compliance developments, then query Legal AI’s authoritative sources to analyze how these changes affect client responsibilities. 

The ability to seamlessly transition between different AI models with different strengths streamlines complex legal workflows, the integration of real-world context with legal authority provides a more complete foundation for client advice, and the one-click access to either Legal AI or General AI significantly enhances productivity. Moreover, legal professionals have the confidence of knowing that the advanced Shepard’s citation agent is operating in both modes, proactively checking any included legal sources for further human review. 

Perhaps most importantly, this work can be conducted within a single secure environment, mitigating the risks inherent in moving sensitive legal information across different AI solutions. LexisNexis has maintained its enterprise-grade security standards while expanding functionality to include access to general-purpose AI models. All interactions remain within the secure LexisNexis ecosystem, with robust data protection measures including end-to-end encryption. 

Experience LexisNexis Protégé 

Protégé General AI helps legal professionals to securely access powerful general AI models within the private, secure Lexis+ AI workspace and safeguards client work within the LexisNexis ecosystem. This gives lawyers the option of choosing the best AI model for the task at hand, without sacrificing concerns about productivity or security. 

LexisNexis Protégé is our personalized legal AI assistant with agentic AI technology that intelligently powers productivity, drives next-level work quality, and enables legal and business professionals to unlock new economic value. Learn more about Protégé’s capabilities or request a free trial today. 

To learn more about how LexisNexis leverages the power of AI to help legal professionals achieve better outcomes, or to follow along for the latest in Legal AI educational content, please visit www.lexisnexis.com/ai.