Westlaw Edge Analytics was  voted best new analytics product in the 2018-2019 Dewey B Strategic Hits and Misses survey of DBS readers. Runners Up Included  Lexis Context 2nd, Bloomberg Law Attorney Analytics 3rd, Fastcase Docket Alarm 4th and Lex Machina Contracts module 5th place respectively.  Gavelytics deserves honorable mention as the product receiving the most 

Two years ago Lexis launched Lexis Answers which leverages AI to deliver responses to natural language research queries with a declarative statement of law with supporting citations. Since that time there have been intriguing references in the legal tech press to the development of Lexis chatbots. Lexis pulled back the curtain on their new chatbox “Lexis Research Assistant” at a press event held during LegalWeek in New York last month.

Lexis Research Assistant Chatbot

What If Alexa Went to Law School?

Serena Wellen who works at Lexis Labs introduced her demo of the bot with the question: “What if legal research was
Continue Reading Lexis Prepares to Launch a Research Bot –  And a CourtLink Makeover

Last  Thursday, Daniel Lewis, co-Founder of Ravel Law (now part of LexisNexis) gave the Keynote address at the annual Ark Best Practices & Management Strategies for Law Firm Library, Research and Information Services  conference in New York. Instead of another frothy,  sermon on the emergence of “robot lawyers,” Lewis delivered a measured analysis of the current state of AI in the legal market.  It was a dramatic counterpoint to some of the overheated  AI rhetoric reverberating througout the recent  Legal Tech conference in New York. Lewis provided a framework for understanding what AI can do today. His talk covered current AI technologies and applications. But the topic which was of greatest interest to me was the a practical outline  of  questions to ask of vendors who are selling AI enabled products.  How do you  distinguish marketing hype from reality? How do you help manage lawyer expectations after they have read about the latest “game changing” AI product — which was acquired by a peer law firm? When the talk was over I felt like standing up and cheering. 
Continue Reading The Awesome Power of Understatement. Daniel Lewis On Assessing AI Products and Managing Expectations

“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

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

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

fastcaseFastcase is announcing today that a former LexisNexis executive Steve Errick will join the company’s executive team as Chief Operating Officer.  According to the press release, Errick will be “responsible for executing the company’s strategic vision, developing new editorial products, and developing the company’s organizational structure as the company expands.”

Errick’s non-compete agreement with LexisNexis expires on June 30th and Errick will join Fastcase on July 1st. Errick most recently served as Vice President and Managing Director for Research Information for LexisNexis.  In that role, Errick oversaw the Legal Research Information Product Division, with a $1 billion P&L portfolio.  He led LexisNexis’s development of workflow tools such as Lexis for Microsoft Office, E-book Digital Lending, Total Patent, and Litigation Suite which included MedMal Navigator. Errick also shepherded LexisNexis’s acquisition of Law360, Securities Mosaic, and Sheshunoff/AS Pratt Financial Services.Continue Reading Breaking News Exclusive: Fastcase Hires Seasoned Legal Publishing Exec — Launching New Strategy– Ready to Take on the Titans: Lexis, Westlaw and BloombergBNA

Ravel Logo New_NarrowBack in March I reported on a rumor that Ravel Law would be acquired by LexisNexis.Today LexisNexis and Ravel announced that Ravel Law is in fact being acquired by LexisNexis. Ravel Law was developed by Stamford Law grads Daniel Lewis and Nik Reed and offered a research platform which radically altered the way research results werelogo-lexisnexis delivered and displayed. They later offered a series of innovative analytics tools which provide insights into judicial precedential behavior, courts, motions and law firm litigation trends. Since Lexis acquired another legal analytics company, Lex Machina in November 2015, I was curious to learn why LexisNexis decided to acquire another product offering legal analytics. Today I posed some questions to Ravel Law co-founder Daniel Lewis and LexisNexis VP of product management, Jeff Pfeifer.

I tried to pin down Pfeifer and Lewis on the future of the Ravel Law product in the low cost legal research market. Pfeifer responded by confirming that Lexis Nexis would keep Ravel’s commitment to provide public access to the Harvard Caselaw archive on the Ravel Law platform. The press release however refers to Lexis integrating Ravel technology and designating content as “powered by Ravel Law.”Continue Reading LexisNexis Acquires Ravel Law: A Tipping Point for Legal Analytics and the Second Wave of Legal KM

Today Ravel is launching Law Firm Analytics which  is putting them squarely into the competitive intelligence and law firm performance based litigation rankings business.

Law Firm Analytics aggregates all of a  firm’s cases  and offers  tracking, searchability, and analysis by practice area, court, judge, time period, and motion. An associate can analyze their firm’s winning