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

OK sitting in your improvised home office (bedroom, dining room, fire escape, patio,basement, closet) will not be the same as swinging through the steamy streets of the French Quarter in July.  B-u-u-u-u-t  AALL has valiantly forged ahead  with a virtual  Unmasking Our Potential themed conference which will be available to members and non members at a significantly reduced cost while offering a powerful roster of speakers and topics. The conference  has been adjusted to address the changed circumstances of members as the result of COVID-19. There will also be a vendor event called “partner solutions day” on July 13th.  Member registration is $99, Student and retired members attend for free. Don’t miss this historic and unique event! Register here!

 

Here is the full AALL Press Release:

The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) is excited to announce that registration is now open to all for its virtual conference being held July 13-17. AALL 2020 Reimagined with the theme “Unmasking Our Potential” has a new meaning today!
The AALL 2020 virtual conference will feature a virtual exhibit hall and livestreamed sessions covering topics of value to legal information professionals right now, including: enhancing research services, supporting law librarianship as a career, navigating remote work, and adapting to and preparing for a profession changed by COVID-19.

The event will begin with a partner solutions day on Monday, July 13, where registrants can explore and connect with providers of products and services that legal information professionals need. Livestream sessions will kick off on Tuesday, July 14, including an interview with AALL President Michelle Cosby and keynote speaker Jim Kwik, mental coach and advisor to many of the world’s leading CEOs and celebrities.

“AALL is committed to providing its members with continued educational resources and finding innovative ways to continually advance law librarianship and the legal information profession,” said AALL President Michelle Cosby. “The AALL Virtual Conference will be the first of its kind for the Association and a creative solution to this year’s in person Annual Meeting, which was canceled as a result of the pandemic. We’re looking forward to the conversations with our extensive list of speakers and vendors, as well as our interview with keynote speaker Jim Kwik, who is sure to provide invaluable insight to conference attendees.”

Kwik is the founder of Kwik Learning and a widely recognized expert in speed-reading, memory improvement, brain performance, and accelerated learning. In addition to the keynote, the AALL Virtual Conference will include over 20 live education sessions, as well as a virtual exhibit hall where conference registrants and vendors can interact and discuss the changes to products for law libraries as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants will be able to ask questions via live chat or submit questions in advance of the conference. In the week following the conference, approximately 30 prerecorded sessions will be available for viewing.

With the focus of being a valuable educational resource still available to participants even during a pandemic, the AALL Virtual Conference is an affordable way for both AALL members and nonmembers to enhance their skills and knowledge as legal information professionals.

For more information about the AALL Virtual Conference or to register, visit bit.ly/AALL20virtual.
 

 

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 Readiness

Continue 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

Fastcase is digging deeper into the legal news market with the timely launch of an agricultural law news section.  David Nayer, Editor in Chief of Law Street Media cites the timeliness of the launch in the press release.  The Agriculture section and Alerts Center is being launched “ while our world is finding its new normal, and its especially relevant to those in food production, food service, and supply chains that impact each of us.”

The Agriculture section is leveraging “sister product” Docket Alarm’s real-time docket, litigation and analytics information to highlight emerging litigation topics such as farming, food, tobacco, and cannabis. It will also cover related topics such as agriculture policy at the FDA and USDA, the cannabis industry, environmental and land use, and the emergence of agricultural technologies. The Law Street Media newsletters are geared toward providing information “that generates business for its users.”

Law Street Media Docket Side Bar

You gotta love Fastcase co-founder Phil Rosenthal who offers his own “down home” explanation of why Agriculture was the second  news topic to launch. “We wanted our second industry news feed to be about meat and potatoes litigation – literally, so our bar partners across the country and their members can see how tracking filed litigation leads to new business”

As of today, the Agriculture news section is available for FREE on the  Law Street Media home page as well as in daily Continue Reading Fastcase Law Street Media: News With a Flash of Dockets – Launches Timely Food Chain Content

Thomson Reuters has added a collection of municipal ordinances  and order for the 100 largest U.S. cities. Early in the COVID-19 crisis Thomson Reuters published  a Global Coronavirus Toolkit on the Practical Law platform. A bigger legal publishing challenge  was about to emerge.  Ever since California Governor Gavin Newsom issued the nation’s first state “stay at home” order on March 19, 2020 there has been a steady cascade of orders, ordinances and policies issued from every kind of governmental unit (cities, counties, villages) and administrative units ( health, transportation, public utilities, fair housing…)

Across the US. law librarians and knowledge managers were developing a “skunk-works” approach to gathering what was normally viewed as the “ephemera” of legal documents: governors proclamations and agency polices. Most states lacked a systematic publication plan and most failed to publish all the  COVID materials on one central website. Sometimes these  life altering  issues emerging  as tweets, texts,  on  Facebook or other social media sites. Finding Continue Reading A Major Legal Publisher Adds Local COVID-19 Ordinances and Orders

Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory  has launched one of the first digital resources providing an in depth analysis of the employment provisions of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The resource launched on May 8th and is available on the Cheetah platform. It provides an integrated analysis which links highlights, explanations, statutory text and amended law provisions to help lawyers understand both the new provisions as well as the existing laws impact by these two major pieces of legislation.

According to the press release “Wolters Kluwer’s new Families First Act and CARES Act, Selected Provisions: Law, Explanation and Analysis (LEA) provides a complete guide to the provisions of both laws that employers and their advisors need to know, offering a thorough analysis of important aspects of both laws that impact individuals, workers, and businesses of all sizes.“

Wolters Kliuwer has a long history publishing “law and explanation” materials to help practitioners get up to speed on major legal enactments and revisions. Ken Crutchfield, Vice President and General Manager of Legal Markets at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S is quoted in the press release: “The Law, Explanation and Analysis model is Wolters Kluwer’s unique approach to integrating information on significant legislation into a single resource, and this latest offering has a wide range of use across several topics, including labor and employment, human resources, payroll and entitlements, and pension and employee benefits. Perhaps now more than ever, our customers are in need of comprehensive, actionable information to help them deliver valuable insights and save time as they navigate this unprecedented and quickly evolving regulatory landscape.”

The digital resource covers the following topics:

– Emergency family and medical leave expansion
– Emergency unemployment insurance stabilization and access
– Emergency paid sick leave
– Health and privacy provisions
– Tax credits and other payroll relief
– Pension plan provisions
– Economic stabilization provisions
– Air carrier workers support

To learn more about the Cheetah™ Labor & Employment Law portfolio, visit: https://lrus.wolterskluwer.com/store/cheetah/labor-and-employment-law/

 Four products shared the top 3 places in this tears Dewey B Strategic Hits and Misses survey results. Back in January readers were asked to identify the products they either purchased for the first time in 2019 or planned to purchase in 2020. Although budgets may have been cut since the survey was taken the products identified by readers are likely to be top of mind as law firm budgets recover. Law firms can not afford to ignore new products which drive efficiency and unique insights. The survey winners are:
1. Blue J Legal Tax Foresight   topped the list of new products that firms hoped to purchase in 2020.
2. Westlaw Edge and Casetext Compose tied for second. place.
3.  Lexis Search Advantage  took third place.
Blue J Legal Tax Foresight is the first product I have seen which uses AI and analytics to predict outcomes on tax controversies based on a variety of factors. I wrote about Blue J Legal back in October 2019. Here is a link to that post.
 Casetext Compose was announced at legal tech in New York. It uses AI and linguistic analysis to help Lawyers  draft  responsive motions. Here is my post about the launch.

Westlaw Edge is Thomson Reuters new platform which is loaded with new functionality AI enabled research, brief analysis, analytics, AI enabled citation tools and jurisdictional comparison tools. Thomson Reuters has continued to add functionality since it was launched in July 2018. Here is the original post I wrote about Westlaw Edge.

Lexis Search Advantage  took third place. LSA is a sophisticated  knowledge management tool which leverages the over 300 algorithms developed by Intelligize (now owned by LexisNexis). The LSA algorithms sit on a server within the law firm firewall and crawl the law firm DMS to identify documents, extract key meta-data. and tag defined terms with the the documents.

Pervasive AI, Analytics and Workflow.  In the past it has been a fairly simple task to define products as falling into  product types along a functionality spectrum. As I reviewed the products noted by readers I repeatedly found that products included multiple attributes. AI and workflow. Analytics and AI.  Analytics and workflow….Many patent products were highlighted by readers  and all of them offered some form of  AI, analytics and/or workflow. Nonetheless to provide some structure I have attempted to group the products, but in truth many products could be in multiple categories.
I trust that the list of products  below will provide an interesting browse for knowledge managers and librarians who need to stay on top of the legal technology marketplace. Here are the products highlighted by your colleagues.
Drafting and workflow efficiency products  Casetext  Compose and Lexis Search Advantage  fit squarely in this catagory. Other productsreaders are considering purchasing are:  Bloomberg Law Brief Analyzer,  Litera  Transactional,  Courtroom Insight, and Castext Cara , Covenant review,  PacerPro.
Analytics products noted for purchase  Gavelytics, Doclet Alarrm,  Lex Machina and Trellis.
Patent products which readers may purchase are   Darts IP, Derwent,  Patdocs,  Questel , Orbit Bio Sequence, Clarivate.
Research related products include Data Guidance a global regulatory product for privacy compliance.
Bloomberg Law Health Practice Center, a suite of practice tools for health lawyers, Voxgov which monitors And aggregates every release from any federal agency website. From Counsel a UK corporate law resource, Sparkspread  Energy industry guidance.