Brief analysis

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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

Workflow Tools. 2020 was marked by significant activity in the  legal workflow/drafting space.  There were eight products that came to my attention during 2020. Three of the eight workflow products fall into the Brief analysis category.   Casetext invented the brief analysis space with the launch of the first brief analysis product CARA in 2016.  So…

Today Lexis is announcing Lexis is launching a significant new platform called Lexis + . I had a call with Jeff Pfeifer,   chief product officer at LexisNexis and David Ganote senior director of product strategy at Lexis Nexis. Lexis+  is being positioned as a premium solution which has been in development over the last 18 months.  Pfeifer described the release as improving the user experience and delivering insights though integration across all elements of the platform. There are a total of 11 new features which will only be available in Lexis+:

  1. Updated, Modern User Interface visual styling including a new Experience Dock to navigate to integrated elements of the product​
  2. Practical Guidance content fully integrated in “Search All​” experience of Legal Research
  3. Lexis Practice Advisor application also fully integrated in Lexis+ and all subscribers will have access to at least one module of practical guidance content
  4. Brief Analysis
  5. Expanded Search Term Maps, now covering 35 Content Types
  6. ​Enhanced Ravel View, including new ‘anchor’ capabilities to better navigate the visual map
  7. Shepard’s At Risk
  8. Code Compare
  9. Lexis Answers, fully redesigned in Lexis+
  10. Missing & Must Include​
  11. Search Tree

One of the most fascinating aspects of the new platform is rebuild of the Lexis Answers feature. According to Pfeifer the newest version of Lexis Answers was built at Lexis Labs where the team worked with a machine learning technology from Google  referred to as BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers). BERT was smart but not smart enough to master the complexities of legal concepts and the idiosyncrasies of legal writing and syntax. According to Pfeifer “Lexis sent BERT to law school.” Lexis was able to train BERT using the Lexis taxonomy and headnotes which had been developed at Lexis decades ago. Yet another example of human machine collaboration. 

The Insight Wave. The signature visual identity is called the “insight wave” a net-like swath of color which arcs and turns across the screen. According to Pfeifer,  the  new image represents the flow and inter-connected-ness of information. This is appropriate since the new platform offers a  tighter integration of research, analytics and practical guidance tools.

Voluntary upgrade. I’m going to cut to the chase for my librarian and knowledge management colleagues. Lexis Advance is not being phased out. Subscribers can continue to purchase Lexis Advance or choose to upgrade to Lexis+.

The Dashboard. The main Lexis dashboard includes an “experience dock” on the left side of the screen which allows users to select between legal research, practical guidance or brief analysis. 

 “What would you like to research today?”  hovers over the prominent search bar. The single search feature will search across all Lexis content. Users can enter queries using natural language or Boolean.

Lexis Answers in Lexis+ was developed from the ground up.  Today, it answers from questions from caselaw but the
Continue Reading Lexis Rides the “Insight Wave:” Launches  Lexis+ with New Look, Brief Analyzer, AI Search, Codes Compare and Loads of New Features

Bloomberg Law has announced  launch the Brief Analyzer product which they previewed shrouded in much intrigue during the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting last July. According to the press release the Brief Analyzer reduces the amount of time it takes to analyze a brief by at least 25%, based on feedback from 80% of beta testers. As with all Bloomberg Law enhancements, the Analyzer will be available to all subscribers at no additional charge.

The Brief Analyzer can be used to analyze a brief during the drafting process or to expose weaknesses in an adversaries brief. Here are
Continue Reading Bloomberg Law’s Brief Analyzer Goes Live

On Monday night Bloomberg Law hosted a “semi-secret” preview of their still to be named “brief analyzer.” I will cut to the chase and recommend “B Brief”  as a name for the analysis tool.  After all,  the point of a brief analyzer is to make lawyers more efficient. The product is expected to be released  as a beta test in September and  to launch by the end of the year – depending on feedback from the beta testers. Bloomberg Law President Joe Breda and his executive team held an event in a “speak easy” style restaurant on Blagden Ally in the hipster heart of DC. A select group of librarian and tech journalist invitees received a mysterious key in a rather MI-5 invitation several weeks before the AALL Annual Meeting and Conference. In a darkened back room, the invitees received a preview of the “brief analyzer” product and were invited to give feedback.

Like other brief analyzers the process is launched by dropping and dragging a document into the analyzer tool. The tool extracts and analyses the citations, text and concepts in the document.

Bloomberg’s product demo focused on the workflow for analyzing an opponent’s brief rather than the process for finalizing a brief that is being drafted. Most of Bloomberg’s competitor’s in this space have launched their products focusing on the brief drafting process, the analysis of an adversary’s brief was included as an additional use case.

The bottom line is that for either process, the analyzer tool is designed to speed up the review process and help lawyers focus on the most important
Continue Reading Bloomberg Law Joins the Brief Analyser Party – With A Touch Of Intrigue