Yesterday I wrote a post which criticized the methodology used by Law360 Pulse in their newly released Prestige Leaders Survey. The survey results are a composite score using four criteria (financial, awards, news and desirability) to measure law firms “prestige” ranking. Although I was impressed with their
use of sentiment analysis algorithms for assessing positive
Law360 Pulse Releases: Prestige Leaders Law Firm Ranking – Do These Numbers Add Up?
Today Law360 Pulse is releasing a new Prestige Leaders Law Firm ranking which purports to “rank firms on four key indicators of: reputation and prestige that demonstrate how firms are viewed by the legal community including clients, legal media and young lawyers.” Since its launch in January 2021, Law360 Pulse has offered their subscribers some
Listen Up! Lexis Launches Law360 Audio Stories Today
LexisNexis® Legal & Professional Law360 is bringing audio to legal news. Starting today every Law360 story that is published will
include a link to a complete audio version of the story. Lexis has collaborated with an Amazon technology called Polly which can simultaneously translate every story to audio as it is published. This feature is being added to all Law360 news content including the UK newsletters.
Rachel Travers, VP of Law360 provided me with a demo during an interview. Polly has a male and a female voice that will each be randomly assigned to 50% of the stories. My brain was expecting to hear something like menacing serenity of Hal the computer in 2002 A Space Oddesy. But these voices a incredibly close to human tone and cadence.
As a big fan of audio books, podcasts, Siri and Alexa, audio legal news has always seemed a no brainer to me. I was advocating for audio legal news back in 2015 when I posted about Modio Legal who was using law students to read audio versions of the ABA Journal. Lawyers are always on the run and can benefit from being able to hear the news when in transit or multitasking.
There are certain limits at launch. The voice is not customizable. I set my GPS directions to provide them in a male Australian English
Continue Reading Listen Up! Lexis Launches Law360 Audio Stories Today
LexisNexis East Coast Service Disruption Due to Amazon Web Services Outage
LexisNexis subscribers on the East Coast of the United States have been unable to access LexisNexis research services due to an outage on their Amazon Web
Services platform. Multiple LexisNexis research products have been unavailable to lawyers throughout Monday. Many users retrieved a “Service Unavailable” error page. instead of the research platform.
According to a
LexisNexis CounselLink Data Reveals Law Firm Billing Rate Discrepancies Across Gender and Ethnic Groups
Today, LexisNexis’ CounselLink will be releasing new data which highlights hourly billing rate discrepancies based on gender and 
ethnicity. The data comes from more than 20,000 attorney profiles in CounselLink and analyses hourly billing rates on invoices billed between January 2020 and September 2021. I
I had a call with Kris Satkunis, Director of Strategic Consulting at CounselLink. Satkunis described how law firm billing rates are “a proxy for how much the firm values the attorney’s work or skills” and this obviously has a significant impact on attorney compensation. An examination of the data indicated that billing rates are generally the same across gender and ethnic groups at the lowest billing rate levels but then begin to diverge at higher levels. Satkunis concludes that “ethnicity is clearly a factor, with Asian billings rates coming in higher than all other groups and Hispanic/LatinX coming in at the lowest.”
Program Today The data will be discussed at a program sponsored by the Buying Legal Counsel at 11 am EST today. Register at this link.
Here are some sample key findings:
Continue Reading LexisNexis CounselLink Data Reveals Law Firm Billing Rate Discrepancies Across Gender and Ethnic Groups
Law360 Pulse Ranks Law Firms on Social Impact Leadership
Today, Law360 Pulse released its new Social Impact Leaders ranking. The new scorecard evaluates law firms on four key indicators of “socially responsible business practices:” racial and ethnic diversity, gender equality, employee engagement and
pro bono service. Ever since The American Lawyer started ranking law firms in 1985 – “profits per partner” has remained the dominant metric of law firm success. If rankings drive change – the Social Impact Leaders report could prove to be an important lever of transformation.
The “How Does Your Firm Measure Up” and “Sizing Up Firms’ Pro Bono Work” reports are publicly available on the Law360 Pulse website.
Key highlights:
- Covington & Burling, Orrick, WilmerHale, Morrison & Foerster, and Arnold & Porter are the top 5 firms on the Social Impact
Continue Reading Law360 Pulse Ranks Law Firms on Social Impact Leadership
Matterhorn Deal Data Available In Fastcase Law Street Media News Platform
Today Fastcase and Matterhorn Transactions are announcing an alliance that will make M&A deal data and analytics available in
Fastcase’s legal news platform. Law Street Media. The deal terms and data will be added to its existing litigation-focused coverage of technology, agriculture, and health law.
According to the press release: “Matterhorn proprietary data analysis provides legal professionals with unparalleled capabilities to search for and compare the market terms of mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, and other transactions. The company provides transactional attorneys both
consolidated information on market terms as well as detailed legal language used for specific deal provisions, based on underlying legal agreements and financial disclosures. Matterhorn enables its clients to know precisely the frequency, form, and language of transaction terms and provisions by tying each deal term to the actual documentation.”
It is axiomatic that lawyers and law firms are hungry for data and analysis- so this is a smart alliance. I am not personally familiar with the Matterhorn product. But the description above sounds similar to the content available in Lexis Intelligize, Thomson Reuters “Westlaw Business” (formerly GSI) and Bloomberg Law. I have no doubt some brilliant research librarian will undertake an analysis of each platform to tease apart the unique and common content and features across these platforms.
The integration of analytics with news has been a growing trend for the past two years. In addition to Fastcase— American Lawyer Media, Lexis Law360 and Bloomberg have all been pushing data into their news offerings.
Growth without Greed I am an agnostic on how these products compare at this point. Everyone is welcome to the join the analytics party – legal consumers win as the quality and scope of products expand. But I do have to cheer for the addition of sophisticated M&A data to products available through Fastcase – which has taken a unique “growth without greed” approach to transforming the legal
Continue Reading Matterhorn Deal Data Available In Fastcase Law Street Media News Platform
The brief analysis wars continue. Lexis+ Judicial Brief Analysis Launched Today
Lexis+ Judicial Brief Analysis was initially conceived as a tool for judges and their clerks. The Lexis product developers soon realized that lawyers on opposing sides also need to be able to analyze multiple briefs to identify conflicting or omitted authorities. The specific functions, features and reports in Judicial Brief Analysis were derived from workflow mapping exercises and interviews with over 100 attorneys.
Lexis+ Judicial Brief Analysis provides the standard brief checking efficiencies (checking the validity of authorities and identifying omitted authorities). But there is an obvious benefit to be able to simultaneously analyze and review multiple documents. Getting a quick overview of authorities cited by each party, by both parties as well as identifying president identified by neither party.
How it works – an attorney or judge’s clerk can upload up to 6 documents – 3 plaintiff and 3 defendant briefs. A Judicial Brief Analysis
Continue Reading The brief analysis wars continue. Lexis+ Judicial Brief Analysis Launched Today
Summer Fun Ain’t What It Used To Be – Law 360 Pulse Releases Summer Associate Survey Part 2
Today law 360 pulse released the second part of their Summer Associate Survey. The survey ‘s reported goal is to explore the ongoing impact of the pandemic as the second class of pandemic summer associates waves goodbye.
The survey was conducted from June 29 to August 9, 2021 and responses were received from 751 individuals. Although the survey was anonymous responders were required to identify their law firm. The report does not indicate how many firms were represented, but 30 firms we’re identified as “at the Vanguard” in four critical areas of: confidence building, networking and mentorship, adaptability of
Feit Consulting: Is Lexis Practical Guidance Ready for Prime Time?
The 2007 recession was sort of a “cattle prod” which shocked law firms into acknowledging that clients won’t pay for inefficiency. Legal publishers responded with a variety of “know how” or KM tools which have created a highly competitive niche in legal publishing. Every major legal publisher LexisNexis ,Thompson Reuters, Bloomberg Law, and Wolters Kluwer have been focused on gaining market share by growing their practice guidance and drafting tools.
This week FEIT Consulting is releasing a study :”Findings from the LexisNexis Practical Guidance/Thomson Reuters Practical Law Focus Group Inquiry” which summarizes the results of four focus groups which pitted Thompson Reuters Practical Law against Lexis Practical Guidance (previously branded as Practice Advisor.)
The basic question : “Is Lexis practice guidance ready for prime time?” appears to have been answered in the affirmative.
Well the librarians are a hardened and skeptical lot and will want to test, poke, probe and conduct their own internal focus groups before
Continue Reading Feit Consulting: Is Lexis Practical Guidance Ready for Prime Time?