This morning I talked with Andrew Martens, Global Head of Product and US Editorial, at Thomson Reuters who advised me that the company had discovered and corrected a data error in their Litigation analytics  in the Monitor Suite platform which impacted dated between mid-April and July 2017.

What products were affected? Litigation Monitor data in the Monitor Suite platform.

What content was affected? Federal district court data only. Other federal and state court data was not impacted? According to Martens the impacted date represents less than 1.4 percent of their district court docket archive.

What products were not impacted? Thomson Reuters also provides docket data on the Westlaw platform through Courtwire. This is a separate docket datastream and it was not impacted. “State dockets, all state and federal opinions, as well as all intellectual property and deals content were not impacted. Dockets on Westlaw were not affected and were current at all times.”

Help Is Available. In addition to offering an apology, Thomson Reuters is offering some support.

“We are happy to help rerun or supplement your Monitor Suite reports. Please contact your Business Development Consultant at (877) 347-6360 or our Reference Attorneys at (800) 733-2889 if you would like assistance.”

The problem of Multiple Data Streams – Thomson Reuters is Not Alone Getting Burned by the management of multiple data streams. Earlier this year LexisNexis was sued when a customer found errors in a paper back code volume. I also asked at that time why LexisNexis would not have a single stream of statutory and regulatory changes feeding into all of their products.

Is there any risk for law firms? Generally this type of litigation analytics is used for pitches and not for client support activities. It is not impossible that the data could have been used in some client support context, e.g. litigation strategy. In this case, TR benefits from not having rolled their analytics into their main Westlaw product  as competitors Bloomberg Law and Lexis Nexis have. Since the Monitor Suite is normally used by research and competitive intelligence specialists – it will be easier to review any use of the data during the April to July period to determine if reports need to be rerun. Firms which have a resources monitoring system such as Research Monitor or Onelog will find it every easy to identify users and usage during the impacted period.

Here is the letter that TR is sending to their customers: Continue Reading Breaking News on Bad Data: Thomson Reuters Discovers Data Error in Their Monitor Suite Litigation Analytics

Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. continues to release new products and features with astonishing regularity.

M&A Clause Analytics Home Page

On July 24th, they released M&A Clause Analytics, a new workflow tool which combines machine learning and human expert curation to streamline the M&A drafting process. The product is designed to help lawyers quickly locate the best model documents and clauses. Wolters Kluwer Partnered with Kingsly Martin of KM Standards to develop a statistical analysis of 17000 documents from WK’s RB Source database of SEC Filings. According to the press release the product is designed in response to a legal market focused on enhancing “quality, efficiency, and ease of preparing merger and acquisition agreements.” M&A Analytics which covers 13 document types. will be a central component of the Transactional Law Suite for Securities.

Continue Reading Wolters Kluwer Partners with KM Standards and Launches AI Workflow Tool: M&A Clause Analytics

 

The recent AALL Annual Conference in Austin was “hands down,”  the most exciting AALL Program I have ever attended. The programs were great – it was often hard to decide which panel to attend. I found my own panels  (Moneyball Analytics and Hits and Misses in New Products) up against programs that I hated to miss (the Innovation Tournament and an “all star”  CEO panel ( Fastcase – Walters, Casetext – Heller, Ross – Aruda,  Ravel – Lewis ) on AI and analytics prodded and provoked  by moderator Prof, Susan Nevelow Mart.

Legal Bloggers O’Keefe and Ambrogi Join Me in The AALL Exhibit Hall

Legal Tech thought leaders Bob Ambrogi and Kevin O’Keefe were a familiar sight at the panets, events, exhibits (and the nightly Fastcase after party). Earlier this week Ambrogi lauded AALL as one of the best conferences for those interested in legal tech. Is the market finally getting what information professionals have known all along? The legal profession requires content experts to navigate the burgeoning market of AI and analytics offerings. AALL: The Other Legal Tech Conference

 

The Second Oldest Legal Profession I spent time in the exhibit hall with Lexblog’s Kevin O’Keefe who commented on  the quality and variety of  panels and programs at the conference.

O’Keefe was surprised to learn that AALL had been around since 1906. In fact, in the legal community,  only the American Bar Association has an earlier founding …1878. AALL predates every other law related association by decades. It was 65 years before the Association of Legal Administrators was founded in 1971, 74 years before ILTA was founded in 1980, 79 years before the Legal Marketing Association was founded in 1985.

O’Keefe also commented on the importance of information professionals by comparison to other law firm administrative functions. “Lawyers could still practice law without technology, or marketing or administrative help, but legal information always was and remains core to the practice of law.”

O’Keefe has a point which goes beyond the core practice of law. Law firms have become complex, regional, national and multi-national organizations. Business intelligence and legal knowledge has never been more critical to the current high stakes competitive market, no one else in the firm is better qualified to assess the potential value of research products offering AI and analytics… and yet…information professionals occupy relatively few seats in the legal C-Suite compared to the technologists and marketing professionals. The person who understand the quality of information should be at the table and not down the organization chart out of ear shot.

But this may be about to change… Continue Reading The Second Oldest Legal Profession: Law Librarians: The Analytics and Algorithms of Change in the Legal C-Suite

Yesterday I highlighted the AALL Exhibit Hall Offerings of Thomson Reuters and Wolters Kluwer. Today I am highlighting the products, themes, giveaways and games of LexisNexis and Bloomberg Law/BloombergBNA which were provided by representatives of each company.

LexisNexis: “Harnessing Next Generation Technologies”

LexisNexis is excited to spend time with AALL members in Austin.  Readers of Dewey B. Strategic attending AALL can find LexisNexis at Booth #502.  At this year’s conference, attendees will see how LexisNexis is harnessing next-generation technologies to deliver smarter content, integrated analytics and innovative tools—in order to drive greater research efficiency and effectiveness.

The Products
Here’s a sneak peek at what attendees will see at our booth:

  • Watch expert analysis with dynamic new video content from litigation guru, James M. Wagstaffe
  • Review smart analytics linked right from a case for revealing insights on judges and litigation parties
  • See how LexisNexis is using artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to anticipate researcher questions and guide a user to the right information faster
  • Learn how investments in technology and exclusive, essential content are paying big dividends for researchers

We encourage attendees to check out our must-see Ravel Law presentation, the latest addition to our powerful analytics portfolio.  We will also preview major enhancements to our Lexis Practice Advisor practical guidance solution.  View a complete list of demo opportunities.
The Gifts  and Games Attendees of the AALL Annual Conference will receive a special daily gift for participating in two product demos each day at the booth or by attending a more private Exhibitor Theater Session. Those that view demos will also be entered to win one of three Apple Watch® devices.

Conference participants can earn an extra entry for an Apple Watch by getting a picture taken in our “Advancing Photo Booth”.  Attendees can have some fun with colleagues, share conference thoughts and a post photos on our digital mosaic wall—and watch it come to life. LexisNexis will send participants a complimentary picture as a memento of their time at AALL 2017.

The future of legal research is happening now. And we’re saving readers of Dewey B. Strategic a front row seat at AALL 2017.  LexisNexis hopes to see you in Austin.

Bloomberg Law BloombergBNA: “One Platform, One Price, Continuous Innovation.”

You have to give them credit, Bloomberg has stuck to it’s single price for the Bloomberg Law platform, which includes all of Bloomberg BNA, while allowing other  customers to opt for Bloomberg BNA practice centers. This year Bloomberg is celebrating: “Our theme is “One Platform.  One Price.  Continuous Innovation.”

Product Highlights: We will be highlighting the various analytics tools and functionality on the Bloomberg Law platform, our suite of Practical Guidance offerings and our new e-Discovery Practice Center. We will also be previewing our upcoming launch of Legal Principles.

Fun, Games and Giveaways: We will have a photo booth during the opening reception and a t-shirt vending machine in our booth.  Each day, on the back of six t-shirts in the vending machine we will affix stickers for special prizes including Amazon Echos, American Express giftcards, Salt Lick BBQ giftcards (Salt Lick is a famous Austin restaurant), among others.  Our grand prize raffle winner gets $500 to Cavender’s, the western wear retail chain headquartered in Tyler, Texas.

 

 

 

 

I asked each of the major legal information vendors to provide me with an overview of what they will be featuring in the exhibit call at the AALL Annual Meeting in Austin July 15th to 18th. Today I am highlighting ThomsonReuters and WoltersKluwer Tomorrow I will highlight BloombergLaw/BloombergBNA and LexisNexis.


Continue Reading AALL Exhibit Hall Preview: Themes, Prizes and New Product Showcases From Thomson Reuters and Wolters Kluwer

Lex Machina is launching the third new module in the past twelve months, following the release of Securities and Commercial Law products.The new employment litigation module includes over 70,000 discrimination, retaliation, and harassment cases pending in federal court since 2009.  According to Lex Machina Chief Evangelist, Owen Byrd they plan to add Americans with Disabilities Act and labor union cases in the fall.

Employment Law analytics includes the standard Lex Machina data and trend analysis for case timing, resolutions, damages, remedies, and findings, as well as insights into opposing counsel, law firms, parties, judges, venues which can be used for pitches and litigation strategy.
Continue Reading Lex Machina Launches Employment Analytics

As market power shifts from law firms to in-house counsel, Bloomberg Law has responded by bulking up the Corporate Practice Center with resources designed to address the special needs of Chief Legal Officers, Chief Compliance Officers and Chief Operating Officers.  Earlier this year Bloomberg Law relaunched the Corporate Practice Center with materials developed with extensive input from corporate counsel at major U.S. Companies. The Corporate Practice at Center  includes  practice pages covering: compliance, legal operations, corporate governance,  alternative business structures, litigation and corporate news. In addition an “In Focus, “hot topics” section offers deep coverage of special topics such as proxy regulation and FCPA.

Bloomberg and the Association for Corporate Counsel (ACC) also announced that they had entered a  strategic collaboration for Bloomberg Law to offer sponsored content, practice tools and editorial expertise to ACC members through professional enrichment, educational and development programs.

Continue Reading Bloomberg Law Relaunches Corporate Practice Center with In-House Counsel Focus: Compliance, Toolkits and Analytics

Last year I pleaded with ALM to change the name of their annual Library survey since they had been predicting the end of Library’s for about 14 years. It was time to stipulate that print collections are shrinking and move on to exploring the dynamic organizations which have emerged in their place.

This year The American Lawyer has finally renamed the annual survey as the Survey of Law Firm Management Library and Research Professionals. The accompanying articles have shifted gear as well. The articles are titled “Law Librarian? Trying Chief Knowledge Officer” by Mary Ellen Egan and ‘From Providing Data to Providing Insight.” by Lizzy McLellan

Continue Reading American Lawyer Highlights Rise of The CKO in 2017 Survey of Library, Knowledge Management and Research Professionals

Entering the “no hyperbole” zone. No Robots in Sight
I spent almost an hour last Friday talking to Jeff Pfeifer, Vice President of Product Management at Lexis Nexis about the upcoming release of a new artificial intelligence enabled Lexis Advance feature called Lexis Answers. Instead of the “robot lawyer” hyperbole that has characterized many recent AI product announcements, Pfeiffer while enthusiastic for Lexis Answers, is refreshingly restrained in discussing the product. Most importantly he does not oversimplify the true complexity of legal research when applying AI to a specific set of facts. Pfiefer describes Lexis Answers as getting lawyers to a “well informed starting point,” speeding up basic research so lawyers can start more complex research. He sees Lexis Answers the “next evolutionary step in a journey with big data sets which is moving towards human like interactions with machines using standard Dialog.”

Press releaseLexis® Answers, a new artificial intelligence (A.I.) enhancement within its flagship Lexis Advance® offering. Using powerful machine learning, cognitive computing and advanced natural language processing technologies, Lexis Answers transforms legal research by understanding the user’s natural language question and delivering the clearest, most concise and authoritative answer, in addition to finely tuned, comprehensive search results.Learning is based on a universe of 14 million case law opinions.

Continue Reading Lexis Answers: Artificial Intelligence Without the Hyperbole; No Robot Lawyers In Sight–A Fastrack to Legal Answers

Yesterday’s post highlighted seven vendors which will be first time exhibitors at AALL in Austin next month.

Those vendors offer tools which are primarily targeted at litigation, corporate and Intellectual Property practices. Today’s five vendors are more diverse. Several offer a wide range of services which fall broadly within “workflow improvement.” Voxgov is the only vendor in today’s group which focuses purely on providing a unique set of content on a research platform. I asked Voxgov founder Robert Dessau why he had decided to exhibit at AALL this year. ” With expertise in the collection and management of a broad range of original source material from Federal and State governments we view AALL as the ideal environment in which to introduce our newest addition, VoxGov Energy, designed specifically for the legal market.We look forward to assisting, collaborating with and incentivizing those who need visibility into who in government is saying what on any Energy related issue at any time. Visitors to our booth will have the chance to win a free one year subscription to Voxgov Energy. Look forward to meeting you Austin.”

Continue Reading Guess Who’s Coming to AALL? Part 2: Government Information and Workflow Tools.