In law, it seems that frustration is often the mother of invention. Gavelytics is the brainchild of Rick Merrill a former “Big Law” real estate litigator who wanted to get better insights into the rulings and habits of California Superior Court judges. Merrill began developing Gavelytics two years ago when he left Greenberg Traurig. Gavelytics

Today Lex Machina is releasing a new module which covers district court bankruptcy appeals. Until now all prior Lex Machina modules have focused on federal trials. The Bankruptcy product covers 18,000 bankruptcy appeals filed since 2009. This is Lex Machina’s first foray into appellate analytics.

The Lex Machina CTO, Karl Harris is quoted in

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

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

lexMachina_logoOwen Byrd , the Chief Evangelist at Lex Machina  is really excited about the latest module of legal analytics. Byrd provided me with a preview of the new commercial litigation product. While Byrd is proud of all of the Lex Machina modules, he sees the commercial product as providing lawyers with a truly unique set of insights . According to Byrd until today there was no easy way to isolate analytics for the most common types of commercial litigation cases:”breach of contract” and “business tort.”  Sophisticated docket researchers  have been frustrated by the gaps in the federal NOS codes which frustrate the tracking and analysis of many important types of litigation.

Continue Reading Lex Machina “DeCodes” Commercial Litigation: Launches Latest Analytics Insights into Business Torts and Contract Litigation

Only seven months after launching the Securities analytics module, Lex Machina has published their first  Securities Litigation Year in Review Report. The report examines key trends in securities litigation using data from 2009 through 2016. It also identifies the top plaintiffs, defendants their law firms and outcomes including damages.All cases are coded into one of

Today Lex Machina is releasing its 4th annual Patent Litigation Year in Review Report and offering a webex to

review the report at 11 am est/ 2pm est. The report analyzes filing trends, key decisions and timing of key events, settlement rates, damages and other key metrics. The report highlights top districts by case filings,

Today Bloomberg announced the launch of a new analytics
product that transforms data on more than 3 .5 million companies, 7,000 law
firms and all active federal judges into actionable insights. The product is positioned as strategic planning tool for litigators by analyzing   past patterns of judges behavior such as motion grants/denials and time to trial.

Coverage:*

  • Motion Outcomes and