Lexis and Westlaw laid the foundations for today’s online research market in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Their dominance in the legal research arena was challenged on two fronts in the 2010’s. First they were challenged by the emergence of two full service competitors: Bloomberg Law and Fastcase. More surprising was the disruptive impact of the disgruntled, entrepreneur lawyers with a good idea and some venture capital who invented some completely new ways of approaching research and delivering insights..

Spinning Analytics Gold From Dockets. Lexis and WESTLAW were in the docket business for decades but it Lex Machina (now owned by Lexis Nexis) which invented a way for lawyers to use analytics for pitches and litigation strategy.

Lex Machina took the most mundane of legal data sets– docket entries and spun it into a goldmine of legal insights. Lex Machina started as a public interest project at Stamford Law school in 2006. The product leverages machine learning and natural language processing, to normalize, structure, and analyze raw data from millions of case dockets Continue Reading Analytics, AI and Insights: 5 Innovations that Redefined Legal Research

I have been predicting that predictive tools would gain an increasing presence  in the practice of law. The press release from Thomson Reuters about Legislative Insights on Westlaw Edge  carefully skirts the prediction issue by substituting the word “probabilities.” Thomson Reuters deep legislative coverage is about to be turbo charged with technology from Skopos Labs. Thomson Reuters was an early investor in Skopos through their venture capital arm Thomson Reuters Ventures.

Legislative Insight is driven by a proprietary machine learning and natural language processing methodology from Continue Reading Thomson Reuters Launches Westlaw Edge Legislative Insights With Probabilities of Enactment

Is any law firm or company immune from Brexit,  trade law or global privacy  (GDPR) issues? Thomson Reuters is responding to the growth of cross-border legal issues with the launch of the Practical Law Global which allows researchers to browse for foreign law answers by country  or topic.  Jurisdiction-specific resources are written by a prestigious roster of  local experts. Practical Law Global will be available on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2020.

Practical Law Global

Practical Law Global offers:

Continue Reading Exclusive: Thomson Reuters Launches Practical Law Global Experience

Bloomberg Law has announced  launch the Brief Analyzer product which they previewed shrouded in much intrigue during the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting last July. According to the press release the Brief Analyzer reduces the amount of time it takes to analyze a brief by at least 25%, based on feedback from 80% of beta testers. As with all Bloomberg Law enhancements, the Analyzer will be available to all subscribers at no additional charge.

The Brief Analyzer can be used to analyze a brief during the drafting process or to expose weaknesses in an adversaries brief. Here are Continue Reading Bloomberg Law’s Brief Analyzer Goes Live

Legal Analytics is changing the practice and business of law. LexisNexis has released its third annual survey. Bringing Analytics into Focus suggests that firms have reached a tipping point in embracing analytics in the business and practice of law with 90% of users reporting that analytics makes them more efficient and more effective. Here is a link to the full press release.

Survey Demographics 77% of the firms listed are listed in the Am Law Continue Reading LexisNexis ALM Study Measures Growth and Resistance of Analytics in the Practice and Business of Law

Lex Machina is celebrating its 10th anniversary with the launch of new state court analytics modules offering data on more than 870,000 cases. The new modules cover Los Angeles County California (615,000 cases) and Harris District and County court in Texas (combined 255,000 cases). The developers have maintained the look and feel of the Lex Machina federal modules and offer analytics insights into judges, courts, law firms and individual attorneys. The data covers four years of court data starting with January 1, 2016.

The Lex Machina state court features:
● Searching by judge, law firm, attorney name or party
● Timing analytics, trial resolutions, trial damages and trial rulings
● Keyword searching within docket entry text and downloaded documents
● Viewing analytics across all state courts or in one particular court
● Court-specific filters, such as case types and case tags

Building a state analytics product is Hard. The market has been impatient for state analytics – but I understand the hold up. Pacer data which underpins all of the federal analytics products is relatively “clean” and consistent compared to state court data. Even within a single  state, each court can vary in the types of data it collects or the types of documents it makes available online. I spoke with Carla Rydholm, Director of Product Management to get a better Continue Reading Lex Machina launches State Court Analytics for California and Texas Counties – Launch Event at Legal Tech

Please take the 2019-2020 Dewey B Strategic Survey here. Review the 2019 highlights below and tell your colleagues about the best and the worst of 2019 in legal publishing and legal tech.

The Highlights 2019 was a relatively quiet launch year in legal technology and publishing.  The year opened with speculation about the impact of layoffs at Thomson Reuters. Mid-year Wolters Kluwer suffered a significant malware  attack  on May 7 but was fully back online within a week.

LexisNexis announced the full integration of one of it’s oldest acquisitions. Courtlink which was acquired in 2001 was finally integrated into their flagship product  Lexis Advance.  The market responded with mixed reviews.

Bloomberg re-branded itself as Bloomberg Information Group (BIG.) Sadly this signified the retirement of BNA ( Bureau of National Affairs) as a brand. Bloomberg had acquired BNA in 2011 add a significant library of secondary sources including newsletters and books. The full integration of BNA into the Bloomberg platform allowed the company to revert to the simplified pricing model they had pioneered during their launch into the online legal information market.

Fastcase continued an aggressive spree of acquisitions and alliances covering public records (TransUnion), bankruptcy forms, Expert witness information (Juris and Courtroom Insight)  and  legal news (Law Street Media) clearly positioning product to move into the large firm market.

The Year of the Brief Analyser. Casetext CARA which launched the first brief analysis tool in 2016  now has a competitor in the Westlaw Edge “Quick Cite tool.”  At the 2019 American Association of Law Libraries AALL Annual Conference both Bloomberg and LexisNexis previewed their brief citiator tools which are expected to launch in 2020.

Please respond to the survey here. The Survey will close on “leap day” February 29th.

 

Bloomberg Law’s Docket Key offers one of the most advanced docket search features on the market. Docket Key enables researches to not only retrieve a list of docket activities, but to search within that docket  or across the Docket Key repository to identify specific document types (e.g. complaints, briefs and motions.) Bloomberg Law has announced that the feature  has been expanded to  cover all Federal dockets.

Docket Key  leverages  machine learning to  classify 20 different categories of filing including motions, complaints, notices, briefs, and orders. Anyone who has done docket research knows the pain of diving into a long list of entries trying to fish for a specific document type. According to the press release ” Docket Key has classified over 210 million docket entries, with additional dockets being classified daily. ”

Thinking Outside the DMS. Lawyers rarely take time to tag their document types or even mark their documents as final. As a result law firm DMS’s are wild, untamed repositories. There are AI and machine learning products on the market which some firms are leveraging to analyse and code their DMSs to make it easier to locate final versions of Continue Reading Bloomberg Law Expands Docket Key to All Federal Courts

Today Thomson Reuters announced the availability of new API’s   ( application program interfaces) that will allow customers to integrate content from Practical Law into their  practice and workflow portals. Litigation analytics from Westlaw Edge will also be available for integration with internal data sets

Law firms are in a race to extract and analyze their own data and turbo charge it with litigation and deal data, Thomson Reuters move is addressing a growing demand from clients to leverage commercial data for custom insights.

“Our customers are continually seeking insights that will help them raise their service for their clients and operate more effectively and efficiently,” said Tony Kinnear, president of Thomson Reuters Legal Professionals. “Co-developing side by side with innovative customers to provide our editorially curated content through APIs allows us to deliver entirely new capabilities through a more open and collaborative approach.”

Katherine Lowry, Director of Practice Services at Baker Hostetler is quoted in the press release highlighting how the analytics will be used for projects initiated by the firm’s newly launched Digital Assets and Data Management Group.

Data Wants to be Free (Of Platforms) Historically legal information vendors have sold platforms not data.  Newer competitors such as Fastcase have led the market in allowing customer to manipulate data with their Workbench and Sandbox offerings. Still it is a major market shift for a dominant player like Thomson Reuters to allow customer direct Continue Reading Data Wants to be Free (of Platforms) Thomson Reuters Releases APIs for Litigation Analytics and Practical Law

I am honored to be speaking at to important upcoming legal technology events in New York City. Legal Tech 2020 and the 2020 Ark Law Library Management conference.

Legal Tech 2020

KM:Our Experience You Win

Date: Thursday, February 6, 2020, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM

Location: New York Hilton

Speakers

Description

Over the past years, many US law firms have adopted formal knowledge management programs under the guidance of information and legal research professionals. What previously was mainly technology-driven is now a holistic service bringing together the collective legal experience, innovative legal tech solutions, and streamlined retrieval platforms.

Key Takeaways:

  • Panelists will share their experiences with attendees and how it can be translated to corporations and organizations of all sizes.
  • Attendees will explore opportunities to strengthen and enhance their organizations KM efforts
  • Attendees will meet KM leaders engaged in building programs from the ground up and be given the tools to jumpstart their own initiatives

Register here.

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ARK Law Libraries 2020

Date: March 12-13

The Next Frontier: The Emergence of Predictive Analytics

I will coordinate a panel discussion with industry experts who will address the following issues.

  • Discuss differences in algorithms that drive trends vs predictions.
  • Hear insights into predictive products that are on the market
  • Learn how your firm can use predictive analytics to make informed decisions and improve efficiencies

Register here.