Comparison
CoCounsel vs Mi Assist Legal -- Which is right for your firm?
CoCounsel charges $500-1,500/mo per attorney and runs on Cloud (Thomson Reuters). Mi Assist Legal runs on your own hardware -- one flat fee, no recurring seats, no data leaving your office.
TL;DR
The five-row answer.
| Dimension | Mi Assist Legal | CoCounsel |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment | On-premise, your hardware | Cloud (Thomson Reuters) |
| Price model | One-time deployment fee | $500-1,500/mo per attorney |
| Data location | Your office network, always | Thomson Reuters cloud servers |
| Best for firm size | 5-30 attorneys | Large firms with deep budgets |
| Offline capable | Yes -- fully offline | No -- internet required |
Deployment Model
Cloud vs on-premise. What it actually means.
CoCounsel is a cloud-based product built on Thomson Reuters infrastructure and OpenAI's GPT models. Every query you submit -- every excerpt from a client file -- travels over the internet to Thomson Reuters servers for processing. Thomson Reuters publishes data handling policies, but your client's privileged communications leave your physical control the moment you hit search.
ABA Model Rule 1.6 requires attorneys to make reasonable efforts to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of client information. Cloud AI presents a real compliance question: does sending privileged case documents to a third-party vendor constitute "reasonable efforts"? Bar associations in multiple states have issued ethics opinions cautioning attorneys to vet vendor data handling. Vendor promises are not the same as technical isolation.
Mi Assist Legal processes every query on a Mac Mini or Docker host on your own network. The model runs locally via Ollama. No query leaves your office. No vendor data agreement is required because there is no vendor data flow. Compliance by architecture, not by contract.
Pricing at Scale
10-attorney firm. 5-year total cost.
Per-seat pricing compounds every year. Mi Assist Legal is a one-time deployment -- the math becomes obvious over time.
| Period | Mi Assist Legal | CoCounsel |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 (10 attorneys) | $6,000 setup | $60,000-180,000 |
| Year 2 | $0 (no per-seat) | $60,000-180,000 |
| Year 3 | $0 | $60,000-180,000 |
| Year 4 | $0 | $60,000-180,000 |
| Year 5 | $0 | $60,000-180,000 |
| 5-Year Total | ~$6,000 | $300,000-900,000 |
CoCounsel pricing estimated at $500-1,500/seat/month based on publicly reported ranges. Mi Assist Legal is a one-time deployment fee with no recurring per-seat charges. Hardware cost (Mac Mini) is approximately $1,500 and not included in Mi Assist figure.
Feature Comparison
Honest feature breakdown.
| Feature | Mi Assist Legal | CoCounsel |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment model | On-premise, your hardware | Cloud, Thomson Reuters servers |
| Data location | Your office network | Third-party cloud |
| Pricing model | One-time deployment fee | Per-seat monthly subscription |
| Offline capable | Yes, fully | No, requires internet |
| Source citations | Yes, with document + page | Yes |
| Document ingestion | PDF, DOCX, TXT, email | PDF, DOCX, email |
| Unlimited users | Yes | No, per-seat license |
| ABA 1.6 by architecture | Yes, no data leaves office | Vendor policy dependent |
| Setup time | 48 hours | Weeks to months |
Decision Guide
The honest answer.
Choose CoCounsel if:
- --Your firm already subscribes to Westlaw or Practical Law and wants bundled access.
- --You need advanced drafting and document generation features beyond search.
- --Your firm has budget for enterprise SaaS and wants vendor-managed infrastructure.
- --Multi-firm collaboration or document sharing across branch offices is a priority.
Choose Mi Assist Legal if:
- ABA 1.6 compliance without relying on vendor contracts is a non-negotiable requirement.
- Your firm has 5-30 attorneys and per-seat pricing compounds into six-figure annual costs.
- Offline operation during internet outages is critical for your workflow.
- You want all document processing to remain on your own hardware, permanently.
FAQ
Common questions.
Is CoCounsel the same as Casetext?
Yes. Thomson Reuters acquired Casetext in 2023 and rebranded its AI product as CoCounsel. The underlying technology and cloud infrastructure are now integrated into the Thomson Reuters platform. If you were previously a Casetext subscriber, your contract transitioned to CoCounsel terms.
Does Mi Assist Legal replace CoCounsel entirely?
Mi Assist Legal replaces the document search and case file query functions of CoCounsel. It does not replicate CoCounsel's integration with Westlaw case law databases. If your firm relies on Westlaw for case research, you would continue that subscription separately and use Mi Assist Legal for searching your own uploaded case files and documents.
How does on-premise AI satisfy ABA Rule 1.6?
ABA Model Rule 1.6(c) requires attorneys to make reasonable efforts to prevent unauthorized disclosure of client information. On-premise deployment means your data never leaves your network. There is no transmission to a third-party server, no vendor data handling agreement to review, and no cloud breach surface. The compliance posture is structural, not contractual.
Can Mi Assist Legal handle the same document types as CoCounsel?
Mi Assist Legal ingests PDF, DOCX, TXT, and email exports. It processes contracts, court filings, deposition transcripts, correspondence, and medical records. CoCounsel supports similar formats. For very large document sets over 100,000 pages, our deployment team configures the vector database sizing accordingly.
What happens if I outgrow the hardware?
Mi Assist Legal runs on a Mac Mini for most 5-30 attorney firms. If document volume grows significantly, the system can be migrated to a more powerful on-premise server or a Docker host with greater CPU and RAM. Because it runs on open infrastructure (Ollama, ChromaDB/Qdrant), you are never locked into proprietary hardware.
Next Step
See how Mi Assist Legal works for your firm.
15-minute call. Live demo on a real case file. We will walk through setup, pricing, and whether Mi Assist Legal fits your workflow.