Bannock County approves Westlaw CoCounsel AI subscription for legal team

The Bannock County Board of Commissioners voted to approve and sign a contract for Westlaw CoCounsel, an AI legal-research service offered by Thomson Reuters, after hearing that the tool could dramatically shorten staff research time.

Greg Radford, who presented the request, said the county27s legal team is short-staffed and that the AI system27s closed research database focuses on case law and secondary sources. "This AI service could do that in about 20 minutes," Radford said, summarizing a recent example where work that took roughly eight hours was completed much faster with the tool. He added that attorneys would still be responsible for verifying citations and accuracy.

Radford told the board the county would fund the subscription by keeping an existing attorney position vacant for a period, covering the roughly $30,000 annual cost with the resulting salary savings. Commissioner (S3) moved to approve and sign the contract; the board approved the motion by a voice vote with members responding "aye." The contract approval was presented as an operational efficiency measure to help the county manage civil casework while staffing is constrained.

The board did not record individual roll-call vote totals in the transcript; the meeting minutes should list the formal contracting documents and the effective start date.