Lexis is releasing a new Context product which they are referring to as Context Attorney Analytics.  I would describe the product as attorney insights.  Analytics are at work “under the hood,” but a lawyer will not see the  trend lines and charts of a traditional analytics tool.  When Daniel Lewis and Nik Reed  launched the

Gentle readers— in a distant era (January) when no one was thinking about facemasks and hand sanitizer, I posted the annual Dewey B Strategic Hits and Misses Survey. In an attempt to “carry on” as if everything were normal, today I am reporting on the survey results.Thanks to the  87 readers who  responded to the survey between January and March 15th. Compared to 2018, 2019 was a fairly slow year for the launch of new products and features. As a result this years survey has fewer questions and fewer categories of new products. But this year the survey covered new analytics tools, analytics documentation, workflow tools, law comparison tools. The survey also asked
Continue Reading Hits and Misses Readers Choose Best New Analytics, Workflow and Law/Reg Comparison Tools

FREE and Powerful: Wolters Kluwer Launches  Suite of COVID-19 Smart Charts Outside the Paywall.

For the past month librarians and lawyers have been scrambling to locate and digest the daily cascade of COVID-19 orders, laws, regulations and policies that have been streaming from every level of government across the fifty states. The Wolters Kluwer COVID -19 resource has aggregated and tagged releases from across the federal government  including  the President and Congress as well as State Governors and  local county health departments.

Today Wolters Kluwer launched a powerful COVID-19 Smart Chart tool which will enable lawyers to quickly locate and compare the laws across multiple jurisdictions. It is the first free advanced digital tool  offering a a “comprehensive
Continue Reading FREE and Powerful: Wolters Kluwer Launches  Suite of COVID-19 Smart Charts Outside the Paywall.

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

On November 12th  (11 am PST, 2 PM est.)  I will be moderating a discussion on the value of legal analytics in the practice and business of law.   A panel of research experts and thought leaders will discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by the development of legal analytics products. Specific topics will include

Blue J Legal had a small booth at the American Association of Law Libraries conference in Washington, DC this summer.  Yet… they had one of the most impressive new offerings in the exhibit hall.  Tax Foresight  can predict the likely outcome of a tax controversy with at least 90 percent accuracy.  The product uses AI

We are all on the path to research Nirvana. Along the way we meet the true believers — many of them are my fellow librarians others are legal tech entrepreneurs. I recently had a chat with Pablo Arredondo, Co-Founder and Chief Legal Research Officer at Casetext  an intrepid fellow traveler and legal research thought leader. Arredondo is passionate about citations, algorithms and optimizing the legal research experience. Casetext has recently  enhanced their algorithms to identify valuable new caselaw features and elements including: motions, causes of actions and party type which can be used as filters to narrow and focus a search.

Arredondo provided insights into the importance of these new features: “Optimal legal research systems must enable attorneys to navigate the common law along dimensions that matter.  Motion at
Continue Reading Casetext CARA Adds Intelligent Filters To Enhance Research Precision

Last week Texas Lawyer reported that by the end of 2018 Texas will make its state court records and documents system re:searchTX  available to the general public— similar to the way the federal government does it through Pacer.
The re:searchTX system actually launched in February 2017 with limited access for judges court clerks and attorneys of record. The system has provided access to documents in their own cases. The Texas Supreme Court is now expanding Open access two attorneys or other registered users. The news story seems to indicate that anyone including researchers can get access by registering.

Continue Reading Texas Expands Access to State Court Dockets and Documents: Impact on Analytics Market Not So Clear

Casetext CARA subscribers have recently seen two new  search enhancements appear on the CARA Platform. These new features ” Black Letter Law” and “Holdings”can help a researcher quickly locate the fundamental principles governing an area of law  in order to bolster a brief.

The Black Letter Law feature was created by harvesting all of cases