Correction: The original post listed an incorrect “click” and “open” rate which has been corrected below. Apologies to my readers.
Last May Casetext’s CARA launched their “brief finder” feature which they recently enhanced with a “push” notifications feature. THey recently released a new “push” notifications feature called “CARA Notifications” which analyzes Pacer dockets and delivers an opponent’s substantive documents along with a report that highlights missing precedent.
Just To Refresh CARA….
The CARA product uses algorithms and citation analysis to identify relevant caselaw which is not included in a brief or memo. An attorney can just drag and drop any substantive document into CARA including: (1) an opposing counsel’s brief to begin research on your responsive motion and to identify cases not cited by opposing counsel (2) their own draft brief to ensure that the document is not missing relevant authority, and (3) a memo with legal discussion and case citations to make sure it includes key cases.
“Brief Finder” promises to surface the most relevant legal briefs filed in federal courts by “the country’s best law firms.” So with no effort CARA subscribers can see how leading law firms have argues the same issues included in the brief they are drafting.
What is CARA NOTIFICATIONS?
Casetext monitors all the PACER dockets in which an attorney has active matters. Whenever opposing counsel files a substantive document such as a brief or memorandum, Casetext retrieves the document, runs it through the CARA analysis algorithm, and delivers the document and a report including uncited but relevant cases to the attorney. Pablo Arredondo, chief legal research officer believes that “CARA Notifications” is the first legal research product to proactively delivers a custom analysis of an opponent’s brief. I have to agree with that assessment. Since excessive research time can be targeted for write-offs CARA is positioned to target a workflow in need of efficiency drivers.
In a recent interview Amanda Gudis, the head of customer engagement at Casetext, stated that she is getting great feedback from customers about the product. She indicated that partners are especially enthusiastic about the notifications feature because it proactively provides research results which in the past, they would have assigned to an associate and then waited for an answer. According to Gudis there is currently a 35% “click rate” which supports the value of the push notifications. Subscribers receive the documents within an hour of filing. There is no shortage of commercial services which can be setup to monitor Pacer filings, but CARA is the only service which delivers only substantive filings and enhances those filings with actionable insights into potential vulnerabilities of those documents. Pablo Arredondo, Casetext’s co-founder and chief legal research officer, described how Casetext has applied the same “centrifuge-like” analysis technology that is used in CARA to dockets enabling them to filter out the routine documents and identify only the high value documents.
What’s Next For Casetext?
Arredondo was cagey, but he assured me that something exciting is in the works which is currently scheduled to launch January 2018.
Related Posts:
Casetext Launches CARA: Citation Fingerprints, Celestial Footnotes and Opinion Souring