Build the investment case from the target’s evidence.
Colabra is designed for the work of reaching a view on a specific deal. Organize the target’s files around your review requirements, turn discrepancies into findings and follow-ups, and carry the supported conclusions into an investment memo. Choose it when your team needs to turn research and private evidence into an accountable diligence process.
Focus on the acquisition
Keep the review centered on the target, the buyer’s questions, and the evidence available for this decision.
Make uncertainty actionable
Record missing support as an open question that can be taken back to management.
Prepare the committee work product
Bring findings, assumptions, and supporting references together in the investment narrative.
Legal authority and deal evidence answer different parts of the question
A research platform may be indispensable for market context or legal authority while a deal workspace organizes target-specific evidence and decisions. The strongest evaluation asks which part of the investment question each system answers, and whether the combined workflow introduces avoidable duplication.
Westlaw
Westlaw offers legal research, authority checking, and AI-assisted research and document-analysis features across its product tiers. Thomson Reuters also positions CoCounsel Legal for research, drafting, and analysis.
Westlaw product documentationReviewed 9 September 2026
Colabra
Colabra is an AI workspace for M&A due diligence, organized around deal files, review requirements, findings, requests, and reports. Its focus is helping buy-side teams turn sell-side material into source-linked findings, financial models, and investment memos.
Explore the Colabra workflow →Where each approach fits
Consider Westlaw when…
The question requires licensed market intelligence, expert perspectives, legal authority, or broad research across external and internal sources. Assess content relevance, entitlement, and research workflow directly; these may be central requirements for your team.
Consider Colabra when…
The main challenge is maintaining target-specific review requirements, evidence, findings, follow-ups, and investment work products. Evaluate how research is incorporated into the private deal record and how the team distinguishes corroborated facts from assumptions.
Using them together
Use research sources for the context they can support, and preserve their date, scope, and permitted use when carrying conclusions into the deal. Keep management assertions, independent research, and legal interpretation distinguishable in the final work product.
Three tasks to bring to the pilot
Use a target management deck, private operating data, a relevant external research item, and a conflicting or outdated source. Give both workflows the same scope, access, and expected deliverable: a short investment thesis with a source table and unresolved diligence questions. Have the people who will own the work perform the review.
- 01
Separate source types in a real question
Use a target contract raising a jurisdiction-specific issue. Ask counsel to identify the relevant legal authority and separately establish the facts from the actual agreement and amendments.
- 02
Evaluate the current product boundary
Evaluate the exact Westlaw and CoCounsel configuration proposed. A legal research answer may be essential to the deal without replacing the buyer’s issue register, financial analysis, or committee memo.
- 03
Challenge a persuasive conclusion
Give a second reviewer a plausible conclusion supported by an outdated or only partially relevant source. Ask them to identify the limitation and rewrite the claim. The ability to produce a polished answer is less useful than the ability to inspect and correct it.
Judge the reviewed result
Agree the acceptance criteria before the demonstration. Record the evidence behind each assessment so the decision can be revisited after the pilot.
| Criterion | Question to answer | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence quality | Can a reviewer locate the controlling source and explain how it supports the exact conclusion? | Record unsupported statements, incorrect references, and ambiguity that the output hides. A source link is useful only if the source substantiates the claim. |
| Coverage and exceptions | Can the team tell what was reviewed, what failed to process, and what is still missing? | Seed a missing attachment and an unreadable file. The reviewer should distinguish incomplete evidence from a clean result and know what to request next. |
| Revision and handoff | Can another person challenge the finding and update the work after new evidence arrives? | Repeat one material change. Count the places that need manual updates and check whether the new memo still agrees with the supporting analysis. |
| Operating effort | How much setup, specialist review, administration, and coordination does the completed task require? | Measure total reviewer time through an accepted deliverable. Include correction and handoff time, not only time to the first generated draft. |
Use a simple result for each criterion: demonstrated, requires configuration, or unresolved. Do not turn an unanswered question into a feature claim. Ask for a follow-up demonstration when a material requirement remains unresolved.
Inside the work product
Explore a
diligence review
Browse a sample investment committee memo, the findings behind it, and the requests that move the review forward.
Investment team · Working review
Investment committee memo
Executive view
Resolve the earnings adjustment and currency difference before finalizing the investment case. Keep customer consent visible in the closing discussion.
Matters for attention
Earnings adjustment
The adjustment combines remediation with support. Separate ongoing costs before accepting the full add-back.
Management earnings bridge · note 4Currency reconciliation
The stated rate implies $1,296,000, leaving a $24,000 difference to explain.
Revenue schedule · European subsidiaryCustomer consent
Confirm whether the proposed transaction triggers consent before relying on the contract at close.
Acme customer agreement · §12.3Evidence reviewed
- Management earnings bridge
- Subsidiary revenue schedules
- Key customer agreements
Source-linked findings
Risk register
Earnings adjustment
The adjustment combines remediation with support. Separate ongoing costs before accepting the full add-back.
Inspect the source
$230,000 cybersecurity remediation and support included in adjusted EBITDA.Management earnings bridge · note 4
Currency reconciliation
The stated rate implies $1,296,000, leaving a $24,000 difference to explain.
Inspect the source
EUR revenue: €1,200,000. Translation rate: 1.08 USD/EUR. Consolidated amount: $1,320,000.Revenue schedule · European subsidiary
Customer consent
Confirm whether the proposed transaction triggers consent before relying on the contract at close.
Inspect the source
Assignment, including by change of control, requires prior written consent.Acme customer agreement · §12.3
Outstanding evidence
Seller request list
Earnings adjustment
Provide invoices and the statement of work, separating one-time remediation from recurring support.
Currency reconciliation
Provide the translation-rate policy and reconciliation for the $24,000 difference.
Customer consent
Provide written consent or confirm the status of the customer discussion.
When the response arrives
Review the supporting document against the original question, then update the finding and the review conclusion.
Compare the cost of the complete workflow
Start with licenses and services already in place. Add implementation, permitted usage, storage, external reviewers, specialist review, support, and the internal time needed to maintain the process. Request a written quote for your actual configuration; a generic seat price will not describe every deployment.
Before the pilot
Confirm the product edition, available connections, document limits, access roles, and who can configure the workflow. Agree which sample material is authorized for the evaluation and which deliverables the reviewers must produce.
Before adoption
Review the proposed data handling, retention, access, and contractual arrangements. Test export and handoff with the people who will own the deal record after close. Include source references and unresolved questions in that final package.
Compare total effort through the first accepted result and one meaningful revision. If your existing workflow performs well, keeping it is a valid outcome. If another approach wins, identify the specific task it improves and the changes needed to make that improvement repeatable.