Today Lex Machina, a LexisNexis company is making the COVID-10 Impact Analyzer App “COVID App” available to the public for free. It was released on June 1st to Lex Machina subscribers. The COVID app provides insights into the past and ongoing impact of COVID-19 on the federal district court litigation.  The press release cites Lex Machina’s  public interest originals as driving the  public launch which will allow “individuals and organizations to analyze data from new cases filed in the federal district court since February of 2020.” Just to be clear, Lex Machina apps are not phone apps. Lex Machina apps are accessible on a desktop. A public access version of the COVID app is available for free  at this link.

Lex Machina subscribers  using the app can click through to the underlying cases for filings and documents for complaints.  

Weekly COVID Case FIlings in Federal District Court by Case Type

The COVID App delivers insights on both the volume of COVID related litigation in federal courts and the impact of COVID-19 on federal litigation. Analytics include:

  • New total case filings
  • New case filings by practice area
  • Findings (i.e., court-enforceable determinations)
  • Complaints that mention COVID-19 or related terms

Filing trends can answer such questions as:

  • whether new case filings dropped off during the early part of the coronavirus shutdown of all public non-essential activities, see the data on filings.
  • how active courts have been in making decisions in ongoing cases, see the data on findings.
  • how many cases were potentially filed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, see the data on complaints.

As with the other Lex Machina modules, this app was developed using a combination of machine learning and attorney review.

One of the unique features of this app is the ability to focus on weekly changes in court filings starting with the week of February 24, 2020. Users can select specific weeks and review data and analytics which reveal the trends. Insights are delivered using bar charts which measure total filings, findings, and new complaints, and shows. “The goal of Lex Machina’s COVID-19 Impact Analyzer app is to make it easy to follow what’s actually happening in the courts using real data,” explained Wade Malone, Product Manager at Lex Machina.

Here are some examples of COVID19 app insights provided in the Press release:

  • Case filings for insurance, employment, and securities cases consistently increased during weeks in March, April and May 2020 compared to 2019.
  • Findings at trial were down during weeks of March, April, and May compared to 2019.
  • Complaints filed in Lex Machina practice areas that mentioned COVID-related keywords increased rapidly during March and April, and reached a steady rate of between 142-149 complaints per week throughout May.

Karl Harris, Lex Machina’s CEO  is quoted in the press release: “There are many aspects of our new COVID-19 Impact Analyzer App that break new ground, but there are two that I want to emphasize. First, we are making our COVID App available to the wider public, because it’s important for us to stay true to our public interest roots in a time of such global uncertainty. Second, this is the only Legal Analytics product out there that is efficiently and accurately analyzing what the pandemic is doing to the federal court system. With our COVID App, people no longer have to speculate what the effect of COVID-19 has been on the legal profession—now, we provide you with the data so you can know.”

Webcast on Introducing the New COVID-19 Impact Analyzer

For more information about Lex Machina’s new COVID App, please register here for the webcast Introducing the New COVID-19 Impact Analyzer​ on June 16th at 9:00 am PDT. Lex Machina’s CEO Karl Harris will demonstrate the new app, describe the power of its analytics, and discuss insights on the most recent trends and data with Christina Fugate, Partner at Ice Miller.