June 2020

Tax lawyers want it all. And the more granular and up-to date the better. Today  Wolters Kluwer  Legal and Regulatory released a new alerts feature in digital Tax Reporters Plus Suite on Cheetah that will enable tax lawyers to track alerts for changes in the tax code, regulations, explanations and other code related documents.

Alerts in a Time of COVID

New legislation is always followed by a raft of regulations and administrative materials.Since the passage of the CARES Act PL 116-123 and the Families First Act PL 116-127 in response to the COVID pandemic tax lawyers have been on high alert monitoring the implementing regulations and interpretive materials.

With the Tax Reporters Plus Suite’s new Alerts feature, users can set alerts to monitor tax code sections they are
Continue Reading Tax Law Alerts in a Time of COVID — Wolters Kluwer Cheetah Adds Powerful New Tracking Tool

Full Court Press, the Fastcase imprint  is launching a webinar series in conjunction with legal history publishers TwelveTables Press. “Leaders in Law” is a monthly webinar series featuring interviews with notable attorney involved in civil rights in the U.S. and around the world.

“There’s no better time to hear from those who fight the civil rights fight and have taken these legal steps before us,” noted Twelve Tables Press Publisher and Fastcase COO, Steve Errick.

 The first live webinar in the series focuses on a seminar LGBT rights case. The Legacy of Lawrence v. Texas, is
Continue Reading Fastcase Launches “Leaders in Law” Webinar Series Focused on Lawyers in Civil Rights

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
Continue Reading LEX MACHINA LAUNCHES COVID-19 IMPACT ANALYZER APP  FREE TO PUBLIC – WEBINAR TODAY

Today LexisNexis is launching the Product Liability Navigator, a “purpose built” product to help in-house counsel and law firms facing  complex types of litigation. It offers a custom dashboard and workflow. Perhaps more importantly, Products Liability Navigator  enables a lawyer to quickly assess the risks of potential litigation.

The press release includes a quote from LexisNexis North American CEO, Sean Fitzpatrick. “Lexis Product Liability Navigator is a powerful solution that addresses the unique needs of litigators practicing products liability law. The workflow-based solution illuminates the risks or rewards of a case and saves time and resources on case assessment… From product recall reports to verdict summaries, no other solution provides this level of functionality or mirrors the way attorneys and researchers approach product liability cases. We listened to over 300 product liability practitioners and custom-built a solution designed to set them up for success. Simply put, Lexis Product Liability Navigator dramatically reduces the time it takes to make well-researched decisions in products liability cases.”

The Dashboard. The Navigator enables lawyers to assess information based on product type, product name, manufacturer and federal  or state Jurisdiction. Search results display in a dashboard which shows multiples
Continue Reading LexisNexis Product Liability Navigator: Speeds Assessment of Case Value, Viability, Risk

PLI is offering a free one hour webinar on June 11th at 3 pm.  You must register on the PLI website and use the code: FREE COVID. Here is the description of the program.Register for free at this link

COVID-19 and Issues for Legal Librarians

As the legal community adjusts to the COVID-19 new normal virtual work environment, law librarians face unique challenges.  It is vitally important for law librarians to be proactive in monitoring the needs of the respective practice areas they support, including ensuring adequate research is being performed in those hot Covid-19 practice areas and ensuring alerts have been set up to monitor late breaking
Continue Reading PLI Offers Free COVID Webinar for Law Librarians on Thursday June 11th

The financial crisis of 2007 triggered a convulsion in the legal industry which continues to offer aftershocks exacerbated  by “economic, demographic, regulatory, technology and competitive demands.” And then  as we know, the COVID-19 pandemic  triggered new a new crisis. Wolters Kluwer was analyzing the legal marketplace back in January 2020. Today they are releasing the survey results in the 2020 Wolters Kluwer Future Ready Lawyer: Performance Drivers and Change in the Legal Sector” which was designed “to assess the future-readiness and resilience in the legal sector.”

The survey gathers feedback from an international group of 700 legal professionals working in law firms and as in-house counsel.. The full survey is available at this link.

The report is 29 pages long but is full of graphs and data illustrating various trends as well as the disconnects between law firms and in-house counsel priorities. Both law firms and in house counsel share an awareness of technology as a critical success factor but the majority of both organization types are f ailing overcome obstacles to implementation.

I spoke with Dean Sonderegger, head of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S about the survey results. Sonderegger predicts that the COVID pandemic will accelerate all the trends identified in the survey.

Top Trends and ReadinessContinue Reading Wolters Kluwer 2020 Future Ready Lawyer Survey–Tech Aspiration vs. Tech Implementation

Lex Machina has announced the expansion of their state law analytics  offering with the addition of the Sacramento County Superior Court (California) and Clark County (Nevada) which covers Las Vegas. This adds a total of 171,480  new cases bringing the total state case analytics to 1,126,722 new cases .  The state law analytics provides lawyers with insights into judges, court, law firms, attorneys and parties.

The new state court analytics modules are like the Lex Machina federal court analytics products, built using a proprietary  Attorney Data Engine and other natural language processing technology, According to the press release “Lex Machina is the only legal analytics provider able to utilize state court documents to provide comprehensive coverage about the behavior of judges, law firms, attorneys, and parties in state courts.”

In an earlier post about Lex Machina  state law analytics products I described the unique challenges of taming state court data. “each state court system the product development team had to get “under the hood” to understand the idiosyncrasies of  docket system and data collection practices.”

According to the press release “Lex Machina worked closely with the court systems to understand their docketing practices and create analytics that reflect the unique aspects of individual courts. The two new state courts – Sacramento County Superior Court (88,000+ cases) and Clark County (Las Vegas) District Court (82,000+ cases) – each have their own data collection infrastructure and nuances. These modules, and thus the substantial case numbers, cover four years of court activity beginning with cases filed January 1, 2016 or later.”

Why Sacramento and Clark County?

The Sacramento and Clark County courts were chosen because they represent important data sets in the universe of
Continue Reading Lex Machina Launches New State Court Analytics for California and Nevada