The results of the 2017 Start Stop Survey are in. Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey. My apologies for the delay in compiling the results – let me blame a series of unexpected events starting in December and continuing through the spring.

Can it Be? The Best New Legal Information Product is FREE!  Although AALL’s daily newsletter launched in late 2016 it really gained traction in 2017. I am also a daily reader. Know It AALL aggregates legal knowledge and technology stories from around the web ranging from academic publications to popular blogs and news sites. It is like a fresh cup of news serendipity to drink in along with your morning coffee. (Full disclosure: I am currently on the Board of the American Association of Law Libraries which publishes the newsletter..) The Know it AALL is available for free to anyone who wishes to subscribe at this link.

What is the best NEW PRODUCT you became aware of in 2017?
Continue Reading Start Stop Survey Results AALL’s — “The Know it AALL” Is Voted Best New Product and Bloomberg Law’s “Docket Key” Best New Feature

Correction: The original post listed an incorrect “click” and “open”  rate which has been corrected below. Apologies to my readers.

Last May Casetext’s CARA launched their “brief finder” feature which they recently enhanced with a “push” notifications feature. THey recently released a new “push” notifications feature called “CARA Notifications” which analyzes Pacer dockets and

“The age of analytics and algorithms is upon us. A new and important role is emerging for information professionals. They will help lawyers ask new questions and gain new insights using analytics. ”

Read my analysis of this trend in the November/December 2017 issue of AALL Spectrum. Click here to read Analytics and Insights:

In late September Bloomberg Law announced several new research features which leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to accelerate case law research.  The The new “Points of Law”  feature allows attorneys to quickly find language critical to a court’s reasoning to support their legal arguments . This feature was immediately available to all current subscibers to Bloomberg Law at no additional cost.

The Bloomberg Law platform now features one million points of law and is updated throughout the day. “Points of law” results are generated by the application of machine learning to the Blaw database of 13 million published and unpublished state and federal court opinions. Researchers can either start  there research with a point of law or start with a keyword then sort by relevance or most cited.

Bloomberg Law Points of Law

This new feature was created is response to the market demand for workflow enhancing tools. “Points of law” research results highlight the relevant language in each opinion. The press release describes the benefit as “enabling attorneys to
Continue Reading Bloomberg Law Launches AI Enabled Research Features: Points of Law and Citation Maps

The AALL Conference Exhibit Hall gives attendees the chance to take a long and winding stroll thought aisles lined with vendors promoting the latest innovations and offering a “first look” at new products. It is a festival of food, swag and serendipitous encounters with old colleagues as well as the chance to meet new ones. I especially value the opportunity for a one-on-one engagement with vendors and a quick tutorial on a on a hot new product. Since the major legal vendors dominate the Exhibit Hall at AALL, it is easy to overlook the first time vendors with unfamiliar names and unknown products.

I thought it would be interesting to take a peek at the twelve new exhibitors at the 2017 Conference and provide some insights into products. This post will be written in two parts. Part one focuses on vendors offering products for litigation, corporate and IP Practice needs.
I recommend that taking a close look at each of these vendors. Even though you may have a product which covers the same legal issues you are likely to discover that each of these vendors is offering a unique type of service or analysis of an old problem. Many of these vendors are offering AI driven and custom solutions. Stop by and welcome these new exhibitors to the AALL exhibit call in Austin.Continue Reading Guess Whose Coming to AALL?: New Exhibitors Part1: Litigation, Corporate and IP Vendors

Only weeks after receiving the prestigious 2017 New Product Award from the American Association of Law Libraries, CARA is announcing today the release of a new “Brief Finder” feature.

Casetext’s CARA (Case Analysis Research Assistant) launched with the promise of helping lawyers find the most relevant caselaw.  Last August I reviewed CARA in a post:

I just received the message below from  Jake Heller, CEO of  Casetext.   Casetext is  now offering free access to their premium tools to any lawyer involved in civil rights litigation.
 Casetext offers access to caselaw and crowdsourced annotations. I had previously reviewed CARA in a post “Citation Fingerprints, Celestial Footnotes and Opinion Sourcing : Casetext Launches

In Recent years the exhibit hall at the AALL Annual
Meeting & Conference has become a “go to ” destination of 
legal start-up executives  who act as
“roving evangelists” offering elevator
pitches and a quick demo in hotel lobbies and coffee shops. 
Image result for casetext logoThis year  in Chicago, I was “pitched” when I walked into the conference