Fastcase is taking on Lexis Nexis Law360 and American Lawyer Media with their relaunch of Law Street Media with a “high tech industry offering”. According to David Nayer, Editor in Chief of Law Street Media, they will focus on “legal news that leads to business.”

The strategy will be to focus on emerging legal news by industry  and  offer  readers the ability to track litigation, companies, and firms within industry sectors. According to the press release,  “The first service will cover high tech and will leverage Fastcase’s wealth of real-time docket, litigation, and analytics information to create legal news that generates business for its users. This segment features emerging litigation in technology, from data privacy and government regulation, to the privacy rights of individuals from hacking, to the commercialization of their private information. Articles include coverage of tech giants, emerging tech, tech policy, cybersecurity, and intellectual property.”

In addition to reading legal news online at www.lawstreetmedia.com, readers can subscribe for customized daily delivery of the day’s stories at https://lawstreetmedia.com/subscribe-lsm/. There is no charge to subscribe or access full articles.

Law Street Media was founded by legal journalist John Jenkins in 2013 and acquired by Fastcase in 2018 The press release state that “the reboot of Law Street is part of  Fastcase’s goal of “democratizing the law and providing a smarter approach to legal research. Law Street’s industry-by-industry approach keeps the focus of news stories on clients.”

What to Watch – Competing With Free?. Fastcase is launching  Law Street Media at at particularly fraught  time in the legal news market. American Lawyer Media is the granddaddy of legal news reporting has had an exclusive alliance with LexisNexis. This is rumored to be up for renewal. Will ALM opt to go independent?. Bloomberg which was already in the news business Continue Reading Fastcase Brings Down the Legal News Paywall With Relaunch of Law Street Media – Market Disruption to Follow?

Gavelytics is starting the New Year with the launch of a new AI enabled platform for business intelligence. Gavelytics which is a pioneer in state court analytics offering  has announced the launch a business center which will provide competitive insights into the litigation history of competing firms and opposing counsel for pitches and  identifying business development opportunities.  The press release reprinted below described the new feature  as merging judicial and motion practice technologies with trial court analytics about law firms and litigants. The platform provides insights into litigation histories, docket data and access to litigation documents.

The Business Intelligence center  currently provides insights for 18 New York counties and 4 Texas counties. New York Counties are: Bronx, Broome, Cayuga, Erie, Essex Jefferson, Kings, Monroe, Nassau, New York, Niagara, Ontario, Queens, Rensselaer, Richmond, Seneca, Suffolk and Westchester. The Texas counties are Bexar, Dallas, Galveston and Harris.

 

The Gavelytics Business Intelligence Center

Gavelytics is facing increased competition in state court analytics from Westlaw Edge, Fastcase/Docket Alarm and Lexis. They remain the unique source of some California motion insights including the “Gavel Score”  which indicates Continue Reading Gavelytics Launches New Legal Business Intelligence Tool Leveraging State Court Analytics

Image result for 2019Looking back on 2019. It was a year of product launches, re-brands and realignments.  Here are the most popular posts of 2019 followed by a list of the most read posts from earlier years.

Happy New Year!

  1. Terminal Outrage: Results of the 2018-19 Dewey B Strategic Hits and Misses Survey
  2. Breaking News Wolters Kluwer Malware Attack – Research Platforms Offline For Now
  3. Bloomberg Law Returns to Predictable Pricing Model Enhances Customer Cost Management
  4. Thomson Reuters Panoramic New Platform Integrates The Practice and Business of Law
  5. Thomson Reuters Launches Westlaw Edge Quick Check Raising the Bar for Citation Insights
  6. Thomson Reuters Launches Precedent Analytics Challenges Lexis Context Formerly Ravel Law
  7. Hits and Misses Part 4 – Westlaw Edge Hit, Miss or Hold Off. Customer Respond.Show Me the ROI.
  8. Bloomberg BNA Announces BIG Name Change. Now Bloomberg Industry Group
  9. Hits and Misses Part 2. Best New Products and Features Released in 2018.
  10. Lexis Prepares to Launch Research Bot and Courtlink Makeover
  11. What Do Law Firms Need to Know about Buying Litigation Analytics Products?
  12. LexisNexis Integrates Courtlink into Lexis Advance Hooray
  13. Wolters Kluwer Responds – Malware Attack Started Monday May 5th not Friday May 3rd.
  14. Intelligize Launches Securities Redbook: Re-imagining The Book as Workflow Hub
  15. Hits and Misses Survey Part 3- Best Analytics Products and Best Analytics Documentation
  16. Bloomberg Law Joint the Brief Analyzer Party With a Touch of Intrigue

Older posts continue to get lots of readers in 2019 . Here are the most read posts from earlier years.

  1. The Improbable Rise of Law360: What Lawyer Could Learn and it’s not Just the News.
  2. 10K Wizard Bites the Dust
  3. LexisNexis Relaunches Ravel Law as Context Analytics Adds Expert Witnesses with Daubert Scorecard. 
  4. An Encounter with an EcoATM. Its Not Easy Being Green
  5. Thomson Reuters Legal Office Closings Follow
  6. Study Predicts Increased Demand for Lawyers and Librarians Through 2030
  7. Law Librarians Revolt—AALL Accuses LexisNexis of Engaging in Unfair Business Practices
  8. Judicata Just Ranked 20 Top California Law Firms by Grading Their Briefs. What Grade Did Your Firm Get?
  9. BloombergBNA Editor in Chief Outlines Reorganization Layoffs Shifts Content Strategy
  10. Blacks Law Dictionary 10th Edition. Everything Old is New Again.
  11. CARA AI: Did Casetext Just Drop Kick Keywords Out of the Legal Research Process?
  12. Westlaw Answers Looks A lot Like AI to Me
  13. Products at Risk Due to Thomson Reuters Layoffs. Readers Respond
  14. Move Over ALM and Law360, Lexblog Launching Legal News Network

By my recollection State Net is one of the oldest surviving legal research and legislative tracking systems.  State Net collected and coded and normalized data about the activities of 50 state legislatures back in the dial up  days of modems with acoustic couplers. They thrived long enough to be acquired by Lexis Nexis in 2010.

Over the years the system expanded to cover regulations from all 50 states. The latest challenge is addressing the growth in important local legislation. State Net now tracks  laws introduced in over 300 major cities and counties around the country.

Daniel Lewis, founder of Ravel Law which was acquired by Lexis Nexis in 2017 is now responsible for the State Net system in his role as vice president of product LexisNexis Legal & Professional. Lewis provided me with an overview of the new State Net features and put the challenge of state motioning in perspective. According to Lewis  each year 135,000 bills are introduced across the 50 states compared to about 10,000 federal bills. Fifteen times more state bills Continue Reading LexisNexis Announces Relaunch of State Net Celebrating 50 Years With Analytics and Forecasting Features

Gavelytics a high tech legal analytics company focused on state court analytics announced today that their analytics platform had been granted a patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Patent no. 10,452,734     for “Data Visualization Platform for Use in a Network Environment”  covers Gavelytics’ invention of a unique way to parse, visualize and display data surrounding reassignment motions and similar filings, to compare such motions among a number of judges, and to predict which new judge will be assigned after a reassignment motion is granted.
I caught up with former “big law” lawyer, Gavelytics co-inventor and CEO Rick Merrill to explore the impact of achieving this benchmark. According to Merrill  “This demonstrates the value and quality of the technology we’ve developed. And how we are solving difficult problems through technology. The patent is actually first of several — we have others pending — some related to this. But all have to do with making sense of messy trial court order.”
JOG: In terms of Gavelytics trajectory what does the granting of the patent mean? RM: “This protects us should a competitor try to do the same thing. It enhances the value of the business, which is good for all of our customers. And is the first of several patents in the works.”
JOG: Will this make it easier to raise money? RM: “We’ve never had a hard time raising money but should we choose to, yes.”
JOG: Would you consider licensing the patent ? RM: “Not at this time.”
The Gavelytics patent  announcement comes less than a month after the company  announced a major launch of  their  New York.analytics module. Gavelytics which started in California has also launched modules covering cournties in Florida, Texas and Nevada. But Gavelytics can not sit still, the state analytics market is “hot.” Thomson Reuters has already launched state law analytics as part of their Westlaw Edge platform and Lex Machina which has focused on federal law is rumored to have state analytics modules in their product pipeline. Fastcase which purchased Docket Alarm offers customer the ability to use AI and APIs to customize state analytics.

Here is the full Press Release:

Gavelytics Secures Patent for Judicial Analytics Platform

Legal tech company granted U.S. patent for its first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence platform

 

LOS ANGELES (December 2019) – Gavelytics, a Los Angeles-based legal technology software company, is pleased to announce that it has secured a patent for its trial court data analytics platform, which helps attorneys better position their cases for success, analyze a judge’s hidden tendencies, generate more business, and manage client expectations.

Patent no. 10,452,734 for “Data Visualization Platform for Use in a Network Environment”  covers Gavelytics’s invention of a unique way to parse, visualize and display data surrounding reassignment motions and similar filings, to compare such motions among a number of judges, and to predict which new judge will be assigned after a reassignment motion is granted.  Inventors named on the patent include Rick Merrill, Juan Carlos Moreno, Jason Madsen, Brandon Hinesley, and Edgar Alejandro Anzaldua Moreno. Gavelytics worked with Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP on the patent application.

“We are confident that our patented technology will continue to support our company’s growth as we expand throughout the United States,” said Merrill, Gavelytics Founder and CEO. “We look forward to launching new geographic coverage and products in the coming months.”

Named among the National Law Journals’ 2019 Emerging Legal Technologies, Gavelytics is focused on bringing its state-level trial court analytics platform to more attorneys nationwide. Gavelytics uses artificial intelligence and attorney review to help litigators quickly identify judges’ tendencies, to understand the activities of competing law firms, and to research the trial court activities of parties in ways never before possible.

Gavelytics recently launched its coverage of New York trial court data. Trial court data from California, Nevada and Florida also are available in the platform, and additional states will be added in coming months.

About Gavelytics Gavelytics is a Los Angeles-based legal technology software company that provides law firms, insurance companies, advocacy organizations and corporate legal departments with state trial court analytics. Gavelytics legal artificial intelligence provides actionable insights that help lawyers win more motions, win more cases, and win more business. For more information, visit gavelytics.com

Thanks to the International Legal Technology Association for inviting me to present a webinar on the use of analytics to manage licenses and spending.Digital Resources Analytics: Determining the Right Mix of Resources for Your Firm  

Date : Thursday, December 12th from 11:00am-11:30am ET.

Format: 30 minute webinar.

Description: Thanks to high renewal costs, licensing models that require firms to buy more seats than they need, and the growing number of specialty databases and newsletters that do that one thing better than competitors, law firm library budgets are very hard to control.  Using a combination of custom built and third party tools, one firm has developed sophisticated records, analytics and reporting around costs and usage to ensure that lawyers and administrators have what they need.  Come see The House that Jean Built in this snackable webinar session!

Speaker: 

Jean O’Grady, Sr. Director of Information, Research and Knowledge, DLA Piper

Registration at this link.

 

Today Fastcase and Ross Intelligence are announcing a content, research and development partnership which the founders expect to drive innovation for both companies. Fastcase which is celebrating its 20th anniversary has excently expanded beyond its primary law focus into analytics, legal news and secondary source publishing and alliances. Ross which made headlines with its A.I. search engine for legal research has recently launched its law school program and begun building alliances with bar associations and with Clio practice management software.

I interviewed Ed Walters CEO and Co- Founder of Fastcase about this new alliance. Walters describes this alliance in terms of a major market shift in the legal research and technology space. “In the 1990s the main way market dominance was building gigantic silos of data” epitomized by the Lexis and Westlaw platforms. According to Walters “The future will be owned by small, nimble companies that have inter-operable parts. The Fastcase-Ross alliance is about creating a new paradigm for the next 10 years.”

Ross will gain access to the Fastcase pipeline of case law, statutes and regulations across all 50 states. Walters described t he benefits of the alliance in the press release. Fastcase will benefit from Ross’s “trailblazing work in the field of natural language processing in machine learning. The partnership will enable Fastcase to collaborate on exciting new products and jointly create new solutions for unmet needs of the legal profession.”

Lexis and Westlaw (Thomson Reuters) invented the online legal research market and have dominated it for years. Continue Reading In Paradigm Shift Legal Research Innovators Fastcast and Ross Intelligence Form Development Alliance

Gavelytics  has just expanded their judges analytics product to include the 4 of the 5 state counties within the boundaries of New York City (Bronx, Kings, Queens,  and New York). The expanded judge product also includes the ability to view the dockets underlying any of the product’s metrics. A user can, for example, quickly identify every case in which a judge presided over a motion for summary judgment in a tort case and view the relevant cases.

 

State law analytics is a hot area of development. There are two distinct branches of litigation analytics. Some litigation Continue Reading Gavelytics Launches State Litigation Analytics New York Judges–Posts Analytics Webinar Recording

One of the few silver linings of the 2008 financial crisis was that many lawyers were shocked into budget consciousness. Seemingly overnight, lawyers became willing to reassess old assumptions. Maybe they could live without personal copies of treatises. Maybe they would try online resources that they had resisted. The crisis has passed but the changed legal market place remains. Law firms that want to invest in new technologies must subsidize those investments with lean budget practices that continuously reassess all ongoing costs. No product is a “slam dunk” for annual renewal in 2019 without some “due diligence.”

Here are some tips to help your “harvest” saving which can be reinvested in “nextgen” resources.

Focus on ROI. Products such as Research Monitor and Onelog can provide invaluable insights into the number of lawyers who actually use web-based products.  Products are often maintained based on  Continue Reading It’s Budget Time! 12 Timely Tips to Help Manage Law Firm Costs

Ellyssa Kroski, the Director of Information Technology at the New York Law Institute  assembled a group of law library and technology thought leaders to contribute to her new book “Law Librarianship in the Age of AI” which was released last week by the American Library Association.

I was honored to have the opportunity to write the introduction to the book.

“The 2018 Altman & Weil Law Firms in Transition Survey reported that only 38% of law firms are actively engaged in experiments to test innovative ideas or methods. This indicates that the vast majority of law firms have a vacuum in innovation leadership waiting to be filled. While all innovation does not require AI– algorithms and analytics will play an important role in the transformation of the business and practice of law over the coming decades. Hopefully this book with inspire reluctant librarians to grab a seat at the innovation table or even set out the innovation agenda at their organizations.” From the Introduction to Law Librarianship in the Information Age.

Kroski’s books is a collection of essays  authored by professionals whose names are known on the legal tech speaking circuit: Bob Ambrogi, Steve Lastres, Scott Baily, Saskia Mehlhorn and Jamie Baker.

The book provides a great introduction to the nuts and bolts of AI and a survey of issues confronting legal information professionals. Chapters cover: an overview of AI tools in law,  how librarians are embracing AI, the impact of AI on legal research, AI in Legal Education, the risk and ethical challenges of AI and the future of AI in law libraries. One fun chapter teachers readers about machine learning by using machine learning to examine Shakespearean plays.

While the book is targeted primarily at knowledge and library professionals, could also help law firm leaders and Law School Dean’s to understand the critical role that law librarians can and should play in selecting the right AI tools for their organizations.

.Order the book here.