Everyone welcome’s a crystal ball.  The second anniversary of the pandemic lockdowns  is only a few months away. Law firms which had been resisting remote staffing trends adapted to the virtual workplace overnight. The urgency of D&I initiatives moved to the forefront. Entire new subspecialties emerged in legal practice. The Bloomberg Law 2022 Series explores the multiple ongoing impacts of the pandemic across the business and practice of law  impacting: Litigation, Transactions & Contracts, Regulatory & Compliance, and The Future of the Legal Industry. There is something for everyone in the 25 studies included in the series. Topics include Return to office (RTO), diversity and Inclusion, cybersecurity, SPACs, privacy, In-house counsel, COVID. Kristyn Hyland, Director, Analysis, Bloomberg Law is quoted in the press release: “With Bloomberg Law 2022, our analysts provide expert perspectives and insights as they preview what legal professionals can expect in the next 12 months.”

Here is a taste of the specific titles many offer prognostications but others pose challenging questions:

Here is the press release:

BLOOMBERG LAW 2022 SERIES EXPLORES KEY LEGAL TRENDS THAT WILL SHAPE THE YEAR TO COME 

Arlington, Va. (November 1, 2021) — Bloomberg Law today announced the availability of its Bloomberg Law 2022 series, its exploration of key issues across four major topic areas – Litigation, Transactions & Contracts, Regulatory & Compliance, and The Future of the Legal Industry – that will shape the legal market in the coming year. The full series, which is issued annually and features 25 articles from Bloomberg Law’s team of legal analysts, is available on a complimentary basis at http://onb-law.com/tXw850GAeS4.

Topic area coverage includes:

  • Litigation: Developments that will shape the course of litigation in 2022 are examined, ranging from Covid-related employment and contractual issues to emerging trends in antitrust cases and bankruptcy filings.   
  • Regulatory & Compliance: Learn how a heightened enforcement environment will impact everything from return-to-office mandates to privacy and tech industry regulation to potential actions by the SEC and Congress on cryptocurrency. 
  • Transactions & Contracts: Take a look at the forces shaping the transactional landscape and key markets of interest, from trends in M&A and IPOs to the nuanced impacts of new data security laws on contract language. 
  • The Future of the Legal Industry: Hot topics such as diversity & inclusion and attorney well-being and the rapidly expanding areas of law such as legal operations and litigation finance are analyzed.

“The changes to the legal market in the past year have been profound and deeply impacted by the ongoing pandemic, the new administration and Congress, and a heightened focus on attorney well-being and diversity & inclusion,” said Kristyn Hyland, Director, Analysis, Bloomberg Law. “With Bloomberg Law 2022, our analysts provide expert perspectives and insights as they preview what legal professionals can expect in the next 12 months.”

About Bloomberg Law

Bloomberg Law combines the latest in legal technology with workflow tools, comprehensive primary and secondary sources, trusted news, expert analysis, and business intelligence Our deep expertise and commitment to innovation provide a competitive edge to help improve attorney productivity and efficiency. Bloomberg Law is the only legal research provider to include continuous enhancements to its platform at no cost to existing subscribers. For more information, visit pro.bloomberglaw.com.

This morning  Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. emailed a stunning announcement to law library directors around the US. The flagship Cheetah legal research platform was being rebranded as VitalLaw. The change is expected to take place  on Monday November 1st.  The librarian list-servs lit-up with the expected questions and concerns as well as a dash of snark. I understand the potential challenges facing my peers. Every product name is woven into a variety of  research and business taxonomies — think training resources, catalogs,  budgets and  portal pages. And then there are  “passive resistors” like myself who still refer to the Wolters Kluwer products by their original US brand name: CCH. (Commerce Clearing House was acquired by Wolters in 1995). CCH/Wolters Kluwer entered the digital age with  CCH CD-ROMs,  then the CCH Research Network, then Intelliconnect which was phased out and replaced a new platform Cheetah. The Cheetah name as meant to signal the dramatically improved response time compared to Intelliconnect. I wrote a detailed recap of the road from CCH to Cheetah in my  2013 post on the launch of Cheetah.

Tonight I was able to chat with  Ken Crutchfield,  Vice President & General Manager, Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory, U.S. He has been hearing about law librarian concerns and offered this comment. “We are excited to introduce the VitalLaw brand to our customers. The new enhancements were based on valuable feedback from customers including law librarians and knowledge managers. We invited customer feedback on our launch plans and recognize now that we could have provided more advanced notice to the broader community.”

What you should do before Monday:

  • Email your IT deparment and request that they “white list” :Vitallaw as a permissible URL and email domain. IT/Security protocols might block the website and emails as suspicious.
  • Email all Cheetah subscribers and alert them to the change. (I know they are unlikely to read the email, but when the lawyers inevitably complain that you never told them about the change – you can just resend your original email as proof.)

Here’s the good news:

  • VitalLaw will  be  a new and expanded version of  Cheetah. You are not losing anything nor will you be charged more.
  • The overall user experience will be similar to Cheetah but  it will offer more content and streamlined  “point fo need” workflow.
  • Cheetah users will not need any new training to use VitalLaw
  • If you use SAML/single sign on users will not need to reset their passwords
  • For customers employing DRM Tools such as Research Monitor, Onelog and OneLogin, the login page functionality is not changing, so no changes should be required for these DRM tools.
  • Links will automatically redirect until Oct. 29, 2022. So you have a year to correct all of the links on your portals and in your catalog.
  • Lawyers can reuse their existing password or reset their passwords using the normal reset password  process.
  • VitalLaw, will almost double the primary law available on the platform ( a 40% increase) with the addition of all federal and all 50 state laws and regulations.

Law Librarians have mastered more complicated transitions than this. And I have no doubt my colleagues will be quite vocal in advising Wolters Kluwer if they have overlooked any transition issues. One colleague optimistically pointed out that with a new brand like “VitalLaw” we can probably look forward to getting free energy drinks at the Wolters Kluwer booth in the exhibit hall  next summer at the next AALL Annual Meeting & Conference.

For any questions, customers can contact their account executive or VitalLaw’s Customer Service at LRSUSTechnicalSupport@wolterskluwer.com and 1-800-955-5217.

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

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.

New ‘Judicial Brief Analysis’ from LexisNexis Allows Lawyers to Compare Up to Six Briefs at Once

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

Today Fastcase and Courtroom Insight are announcing a partnership which will integrate Docket Alarm with the Courtroom Insight knowledge management product. Courtroom Insight which offers a database including thousands of profiles for judges, expert witnesses and arbitrators, allows law firms to build out custom experience database mapping internal lawyer experience to those profiles. . Docket Alarm’s 500 million state and federal litigation docket and documents will be mapped to the experts and judges within Courtroom Insight.

Docket Alarm Founder and Fastcase VP of analytics Michael Sander, describes this partnerships as “building API bridges within the legal tech community, knowing that the litigation record contains a robust dossier on thousands of expert witnesses. Marrying these data sources ultimately helps law firms make better decisions on expert witnesses.”

This is a win-win for both companies. Law firms no longer want to buy interfaces, they want to buy data that can power internal Continue Reading APIs for Insights: Fastcase and Courtroom Insight Announce Full CI Integration with Docket Alarm

Last week Thomson Reuters announced a significant new integration of HighQ with  workflow  features of  Practical Law and 3E features, and  Microsoft Teams®. According to the press release the HighQ workflow platform offers more than “50 customer-driven enhancements.”  The marketplace is demanding tools which drive collaboration and optimize workflows and productivity.

The HighQ 3W Dashboard

The new integrations offer the following benefits:

  • The Practical Law integration allows users to visualize and customize the Corporate and Litigation Matter Maps in one click from within HighQ allows lawyers to standardize processes, planning and management of tasks and workflow.
  • seamlessly incorporates key client data from 3E into HighQ’s visualization and workflow automation tools. This allows users to provide clients with real-time access to their work-in progress and current billing, making it easier to monitor activity and stay informed on project status.
  • The Microsoft Teams integration offers a two way integration. Users to share content from HighQ within Teams private chat or group channels, and also upload files from Teams to HighQ.
  • HighQ users can now share Contract Express questionnaires with external users, allowing anyone to generate documents in HighQ.
  • Users have a “bulk” upload option for sending documents to DocuSign® for signing and a site proxy login for better permission management.

Chris Kitchener, vice president, Product Management for Thomson Reuters HighQ underscores the value of these new features in the press release.  “We are continually working with customers to further evolve HighQ as a hub for legal workflows… Our latest additions
combine customer-requested components with strategic upgrades to help legal professionals work more
efficiently and productively, and ultimately, deliver improved client satisfaction with our content-driven
technology solutions.”

Earlier this month Wolters Kluwer expanded their Practical Insights a component of  Kluwer Arbitration Practice Plus . Kluwer which offers the leading arbitration product for lawyers added practical guidance for 23 arbitration topics. The product will expand to 40 topics by November 2021.
The Kluwer Arbitration Practice Plus (KAPP) platform launched in 2019 as an add on to Kluwer Arbitration. KAPP includes an arbitrator

Continue Reading Wolters Kluwer Enhances Arbitration With Practical Insights and Guidance Features

Tuesday morning law librarians around the country began fielding inquiries from lawyers complaining of slow response times and access problems on Westlaw. The disrupted services included: Westlaw, Westlaw Edge, Westlaw UK, Practical Law US and UK, Practical Law Connect, Data Privacy Advisor.

After almost 7 hours of  interrupted access and colossal slow response times, Thomson Reuters representations were reaching out to customers to report that systems had been restored to normal.

I reached out to Thomson Reuters executives for an explanation, but they provided only two  brief statements addressing the  system Continue Reading Westlaw Services Back to Normal Following Serious Disruptions Through Most of Tuesday

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

Continue Reading Summer Fun Ain’t What It Used To Be – Law 360 Pulse Releases Summer Associate Survey Part 2

On August 24, I was stunned by a press release announcing that Docket Navigator a U.S. research and analytics platform was being acquired, not by one of the usual U.S. legal tech suspects, but by a U.K. information services platform, Law Business Research, Ltd. (LBR) which has a fairly low profile in the United States. According to the press release “LBR is a global legal information services business providing intelligence platforms, legal analysis tools and networking across multiple legal practice areas. LBR brands IAM, Continue Reading Docket Navigator Acquired By Law Business Research Ltd.: What Should Customers Expect?