Each year AALL welcomes new exhibitors seeking to reach the decision-makers in law libraries and information centers.  The current powerful generation  of tools in the legal  market often offer multiple features so the products are sometimes not easy to categorize. I have taken the liberty of characterizing each new exhibitor by a single label –although you will see in some cases the products offer features that fall into two categories.  You will have to get the full picture of each product yourself by visiting the exhibit hall at AALL’s Annual  Meeting and Conference in Washington DC July 13-16th.

Here are the new vendors you can meet with in DC.

Analytics

Blue J Legal offers fact specific analytics and predictions. Current modules include Canadian and US tax predictive analytics, employment and human resources. In a nutshell: the product uses Analytics, AI machine learning to predict outcomes and provides a confidence score. According to the website – the product will “continue to learn.”

Gavelytics  started out offering  trial court analytics across California. The product which describes itself as buit by lawyers for lawyers offers analytics about judges workload, peremptory challenges, and a unique feature called a gavel-score. They also offer judges profiles. Over the past year they have expanded into several new states across the US.

Loom Analytics is a Canadian data analytics company that builds SaaS platforms for law firms and corporate legal departments.  Its products include the award winning Court Analytics platform, that provides quantitative outcomes for Canadian courts, and Structura, a data analytics platform for our clients to assess risk and anticipate outcomes for their own matters based on historical trends.

Current  Awareness, Compliance and Insights

Reorg Research  

Reorg Research is already known to many  law firm librarians for providing daily bankruptcy docket alerts. Next week they will be debuting a new “attorneys fees” feature. Reorg’s new Attorneys’ Fees Database uses machine learning to extract billing rates from final fee applications from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, and then creates visualizations of those rates. Reorg subscribers will be able to quickly and easily search this database and filter by firm, jurisdiction, practice area and role to benchmark themselves against their peers and prepare for client pitches.

Golden Arrow Alerts  Spoiler Alert – Golden Arrow is the only only product I know of which was designed and launched by an AALL Member. Martin Korn will be attending this year’s AALL as both a member and an exhibitor.

No surprise — Martin’s law firm experience inspired him to design a product which offers to improve  a law firm’s  bottom line.  The product provides a daily list of  new complaints filed against a wide array of businesses on regulatory issues. In addition to daily alerts, Golden Arrow also offers an added data file for those innovative subscribers who use that data to track and manage the filings and dockets of the agencies in which they practice.  The data files also allow subscribers the chance to automate their business development process by matching party names with client lists.

State and Federal Compliance The iComply product helps law firms, lobbyists and corporations comply  with and report on  lobbying, procurement and political contribution laws.

Information Management

Soutron Global offers Library, archive, digital asset management and a skills database.

NMS Imaging “has a “best of breed” philosophy towards solution partners.  Our in-house engineers and technical staff are experts in all our offerings.  Below are the companies whose products make up our tailored solutions. ”

Legal Education

Themis Bar If only there was something like this in 1986 when I was studying for the NYS bar. Back then bar prep involved sitting in an overcrowded amphitheater getting hand cramp from speed-writing legal Mnemonics in a live nightly bar review lecture. “Themis’s online learning platform provides you with the resources you need to study effectively, ensuring you complete as much coursework as possible. We offer insightful Performance Analytics so you can gauge how you stack up to other students by question, subject matter, and overall performance.”

Hope to see you next week in the Exhibit Hall.

Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. continues to expand suite of securities law and workflow products with today’s launch of Capital Markets Clause Analytics. Similar to the M&A Clause Analytics which they launched in 201?, CAPA offers a workflow solution that leverages artificial intelligence and expert human curation. CAPA is the latest addition to Wolters Kluwer’s Transactional Law Suite for Securities, promises to bring new efficiencies to capital markets document drafting workflow. The tool enhanced both knowledge management and competitive intelligence efforts. Law firms use COPA to benchmark their own deals and clauses as well as benchmarking the firm against deals and clauses done by specific competitor law firms or the market as a whole. All of the documents have been extensively coded which provides lawyers with powerful tools for to filtering and focusing on specific deal and clause types.

Capital Markets Clause Analytics Home Page

 

The press release quotes Susan Chain, Esq. Portfolio Director for Securities and Banking at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. “As clients continue to aggressively pursue improved cost efficiency and timeliness from legal providers, legal professionals are in need of workflow solutions that address their most critical pain points.We developed Capital Markets Clause Analytics to integrate powerful technology with our domain expertise to transform the Capital Markets drafting process, boost our customers’ productivity and improve their ROI.”


 

Features

Capital Markets Clause Analytics streamlines the Capital Markets drafting and negotiating process for securities law professionals with:
• Custom Model Agreements: Users can create a custom model based on their unique criteria, search across a database of more than one million individual clauses, analyze agreements clause by clause, and compare their findings to their own agreements and clauses;
• Practical Guidance: Expertly prepared practical guidance, such as elements of the clause checklists, drafting considerations, and intent of the clause, are shown alongside individual clauses, enhancing your understanding at the point of need, instantly surfacing drafting risks, and eliminating the potential for costly mistakes; and
• Benchmarking: Users can enhance their efficiency and boost negotiating leverage with statistics and comparisons based on their specific deal criteria. Several comparison tools allow professionals to efficiently benchmark your own agreements and clauses, providing insight of drafting techniques used by specific law firms or industries.

Since there is a frenzied competition in the litigation analytics market it is good to see Wolters Kluwer expanding the use of analytics to provide insights for transactional lawyers.

To learn more about the Capital Markets Clause Analytics and the power of the entire Transactional Law Suite for Securities, visit: https://lrus.wolterskluwer.com/store/transactional-law-suite/

 

 

I was traveling this week, so I will provide a summary of some legal information and technology highlights.

Fastcase and Florida Bar Launch Case Alerts

Fastcase which seems to have a weekly product launch or feature enhancement – did not disappoint this week. On Tuesday they announced that in collaboration with the Florida Bar they had launched Case Alerts, a daily report of court decisions in key practice areas. The subscription-only service introduced Florida Family Law Alerts, a daily e-mail summary of family law decisions from Florida courts. Fastcase and The Florida Bar will roll out new Florida practice areas throughout the summer, including business law, real property, probate, trusts, and tax law alerts. Read more at this link.

Thomson Reuters Added Jurisdictional Surveys to Westlaw Edge

On Monday Thomson Reuters announced the release of Jurisdictional Surveys, The press release describes the features as allowing users to “quickly retrieve a customized and relevant compilation of laws across all U.S. jurisdictions on virtually any topic.”  My first reaction to Thomson Reuters press release on jurisdictional surveys was to wonder how this feature if different from their 50 state survey offering. I plan to have a demo and will report back on what I learn.

Bloomberg Ending UK Court Coverage

A Bloomberg  Law executive  explained  to me that use of the UK materials had declined and that there were legal Continue Reading Weekly Round Up – Fastcase Adds Case Alerts; TR Adds Jurisdictional Surveys; Bloomberg Law Ends UK Coverage; New Exhibitors at AAALL — Innovation Survey!

I will be moderating a hot topic program at the Special Libraries Association Annual Conference in Cleveland. The Event is sponsored by Lucidea. Don’t Just Be Integral: Be Aligned.

 

Building on the themes drawn out during last year’s successful Lucidea-sponsored session, “Don’t Just Be Integrated, Be Integral”, we will present the next in our SLA Hot Topics series on special library sustainability, during which we’ll explore what a special librarian’s mission truly is, and why it encompasses even more than skills, experience, services and approach. The path to success and sustainability includes applying your tools and skills in support of the top-level mission and goals—and adapting the library’s services and deliverables so you’re always aligned with what’s most important to senior leadership.

Time: Monday, June 17, 2019. 9:00am – 10:30am

  • How do you prioritize and delegate projects based on alignment?
  • What are some strategies for partnering and leveraging other departments?
  • How do you practice alignment without guilt?

Panelists

  • Moderator: Jean O`Grady, Director of Research and Knowledge Services. DLA Piper
  • Cindy Moon-Barna, Director, CASE Library. C.A.S.E.
  • Karen MQuillen, Executive Director, Connect. ETS
  • Annette L. Demers, Law Librarian. University of Windsor Faculty of Law

The program will be followed by a panelist Q&A in the afternoon.

It seems like only yesterday that Joan Axelroth and I were Co-Chairs of the 2012 PLL Summit themed as “The Road to 2020.”   That year’s Keynote Speaker was Jordan Furlong, a leading legal industry consultant who inspired the audience with a talk entitled  “Climbing the Value Ladder. Rethinking the Law Library on the Road to 2020” 

Keynote: Jordan Furlong

Furlong is back and this years Summit theme is “The Road to 2030.”  In retrospect, many of Furlong’s predictions about the transformation of libraries and the morphing of librarians into a wide spectrum of knowledge and technology roles have materialized. I am looking forward to another inspiring Furlong road map suggesting how we should respond to the changes ahead.

The keynote will highlight how the growing power and sophistication of legal intelligence will dovetail with and help to accelerate the transformation of law firms’ client services and business models. Furlong will describe how law librarians, knowledge engineers, and data analysts will play Continue Reading Registration Closing for PLLIP Summit: The Road to 2030 with Jordon Furlong Keynote and Design Thinking Workshop

Today Lex Machina a LexisNexis product, is launching an Environmental Analytics module which provides insights on nearly 14,700 environmental cases pending in federal court since 2009.  This is the fourteenth module in the Lex Machina suite of products. The product provides previously unreported data, e.g.  more than $22 billion in damages have been awarded in environmental litigation cases over the last decade. High profile cases Continue Reading Lex Machina Launches Environmental Analytics Product: Hosting Webcast June 11th

Almost all players in the legal market talk about innovation. Law firms start incubators, clients demand innovation, and providers promote their innovative solutions. But just what is innovation, who’s doing it, and how do rank and file legal market workers handle it?  I am moderating a Hot Topic panel at AALL  Embracing Sustainable Innovation – Building a Future Focused Library. To prepare for a conference,  the panelists are seeking to answer these questions by conducting an anonymous survey. I hope you will participate. Please click here.

BACKGROUND – CONFERENCE SESSION PROMPTING THE SURVEY: I will be a panelist on Sunday, July 14, at 11:30am in Washington, DC at the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) annual conference. The session is Hot Topic: Embracing Sustainable Innovation Initiatives to Build a Future-Focused Library. The session description appears Continue Reading Law Firm Innovation Survey For AALL Conference “Hot Topic” Panel- Results in July

Casemaker has announced the launch of Casemaker4 – a “next generation” research platform with a new look, faster search and expanded functionality New features were added based on extensive testing and user feedback. New features include: alerts delivered via email; advanced search opinions; predictive “type ahead” functionality; and “intelligent algorithms” which suggest related primary and secondary materials related to the research query.   Casemaker4 is positioned in the low cost online research market which has benefited from the convergence of  algorithms, legal text investment and market frustration with the high cost of products from the largest vendors: Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis and Bloomberg.

Demos are available from Casemaker upon request.

Here is the press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 3, 2019 Contact: Norman Woolworth

Telephone: 434-220-4309

Toll-Free: 877-659-0801 Email: nwoolworth@casemakerlegal.com Web Site: www.casemakerus.com

Casemaker Launches Next Generation Research Platform Casemaker4 brings new look, faster searching, expanded functionality

Charlottesville, VA, June 3, 2019 – Casemaker today announced the formal launch of its next generation legal research platform, Casemaker4. Beginning today, all Casemaker subscribers have access to Casemaker4, which features a redesigned user interface and leverages improved search speed and more intuitive site navigation to deliver faster results.

“We are thrilled to announce the release of Casemaker4,” said Sarah Gorman, Chief Operating Officer at Casemaker. “The new platform is informed by several years of user feedback and an extensive beta testing process. The response from the last round of beta was overwhelmingly positive and we are extremely excited to now open up Casemaker4 to our entire subscriber base.”

In creating Casemaker4, the development team was presented with two overarching imperatives:

On the one hand, improve search speed, modernize the interface to enable more intuitive site navigation, and upgrade design responsiveness to better accommodate mobile devices; On the other hand, retain features and design elements that loyal Casemaker users value and trust, and minimize changes with the potential to disorient.

“In other words: Make it new, make it better, but avoid change for change’s sake,” said Casemaker Chief Information Officer Dan McCade. “The history of platform re-designs is littered with examples of solutions in search of problems. We were determined to only add features that would matter to our users, and to not throw out the baby with the bath water, so to speak.”

According to McCade, expanded feature functionality on Casemaker4 includes a new Alerts feature that enables a user to have new developments in areas of interest delivered straight to her in box; an expanded Search Input Box with an Advanced Search option; predictive “Type Ahead” functionality; and the incorporation of intelligent algorithms to suggest related primary and secondary materials not previously displayed.

In third party testing* Casemaker has been shown to consistently return more relevant results than other low cost legal research services, while also featuring more thorough and up-to-date primary law content sets, and a more precise and less cumbersome negative citator, CaseCheck+.

“Now, with the launch of Casemaker4, our subscribers can enjoy the best of both worlds,” Gorman said. “A much improved platform with state-of-the-art functionality, and content they can continue to rely on with confidence.”

Demos are available upon request.

*The study may be found at http://casemakerlegal.com/pdf/public/database-comparision.pdf.

 

* * * About Casemaker: Casemaker focuses on a single mission: providing attorneys with affordable access to high quality legal research. Available for free to members of almost 30 bar associations, and to nonmembers at a fraction of the cost charged by “premium” providers, the Casemaker legal research system offers full federal and 50-state primary law coverage that is often more current than that provided by the leading high-cost services. For more information, please visit www.casemakerus.com. Casemaker is a division of Lawriter®, LLC.

Only weeks after Wolters Kluwer was in news for surviving a malware attack, today there is happier news.  Dean Sonderegger has been named SVP & General Manager of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory . He succeeds former LRUS head Greg Samios who was recently named as President & CEO of the Wolters Kluwer Health division’s global Health Learning, Research & Practice.  Sonderreger has decades of experience in the legal technology and publishing space. Most recently he was, he was Executive Director of Product Management and Marketing at Bloomberg BNA. At Wolters Kluwer Sonderegger  has spearheaded customer-focused innovation to enhance legal professionals’ Continue Reading Dean Sonderegger Named SVP & General Manager of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory

Today Bloomberg Law announced the expansion of Litigation Practice Guidance which includes overviews, checklists, sample forms and filings that are organized around the litigation process. They are structured to guide attorneys through each phase of initiating and defending litigation– addressing both legal and logistical issues. A new Litigation Resources page organizes the key research tools and reference materials needed for daily practice, including statutes of limitations, jury instructions, court rules, laws, and regulations. The guidance resources enhance and link to the litigation resources which where already on Bloomberg Law  including  Points of Law, Smart Codes and their outstanding docket resources.

Joe Breda, The President of Bloomberg Law and Mindy Rattan who oversees the development of litigation content. provided me with an overview of the product. Breda described Litigation Practice Guidance as providing “reliable answers in the shortest amount of time.”  As law firms have embraced the “gospel of efficiency”  Bloomberg Law and their legal publishing competitors have responded by moving away from the esoteric treatise toward the practical roadmap and one-stop resource center. in 2011 Bloomberg acquired the Bureau of National Affairs which had pioneered practical guidance with their Tax and Corporate Practice Portfolios. According to Breda, the Litigation portfolios remain available in the Litigation Practice Center, but the Litigation Practical Guidance materials are the result of a new initiative headed up by Mindy Rattan. These resources are authored by expert practitioners rather than by legal editors. They will continue to build out content and have already announced that new resources will cover Special Defenses and Discovery.

The Litigation Practice Guidance includes:

 

  • Topical overviews, checklist and forms
  • Links to related content (e.g. dockets, patents)
  • Points of law providing key legal principles in court opinions
  • Smart Code provides up-to-date judicial interpretations of statues rules and regulations
  • Practice tips guidance written by expert practitioners

 

LITIGATION GUIDANCE OVERVIEW

 

TEMPLATE FOR MOTION DRAFTING

Template for Drafting a Motion 

INTERACTIVE STATUTES OF LIMITIATIONS MAP

Interactive state statutes of limitations map

Market Position: The two main competitors to Litigation Guidance are LexisNexis Practice Advisor and Thomson Reuters Practical Law. Practical Law  started in the UK and since its acquisition by TR has become the dominant practical guidance product in the U. S.. Like other TR products, Practical Law is a “high ticket” product.  TR has also morphed and divided their Practical Law product into multiple “flavors” of Practical Law — achieving two unintended outcomes– diluting the  Practical Law brand and annoying their customers. Price sensitive customers are looking for alternatives. Since Litigation Guidance is available to anyone with a Bloomberg Law Subscription – this could begin to erode Practical Law use in firms with access to Bloomberg Law.  But in order to move the market – Bloomberg needs to develop more guidance materials for more practice areas.  For now, they are off to a promising start.

Availability: As with all enhancements to the Bloomberg Law platform, this new Litigation Practical Guidance and the accompanying Litigation Resources expansion are available to Bloomberg Law subscribers at no additional cost.

Demo: Request a demo at this link.