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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

Bloomberg Law recently announced 3 enhancements to Bloomberg Law which will be available to all subscribers at no additional cost.    These resources include “time to trial” analytics, a unique court focused practice portfolio and a groundbreaking new docket feature, Docket Key which bring a smile to the face of anyone who has ever…

The October issue of Thomson Reuters’ Practice Innovations has been released. Practice Innovations is a quarterly publication which focuses on best practices and innovations in law firm information and knowledge management for legal professionals.

Here is a  list of the latest articles:

Blockchain, Bitcoin, and Law: A Distributed Disruption, By Rohit Talwar, CEO, Fast …

“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:…

Today Bloomberg Law is announcing the release of its 15th practice center which is focused on E-Discovery. Bloomberg is  moving rapidly to consolidate existing BNA news, practice  and analytical resources as well as creating new content to enhance attorneys workflow efficiency. The Bloomberg Law Practice Centers are designed to compete directly with competitors in this space: Thomson Reuters Practical Law and Lexis Practice Advisor.

Bloomberg Law E Discovery Practice Center

The E Discovery Practice Center offers a comprehensive solution that integrates news, primary sources including both published and unpublished state and federal court opinions, tools, sample forms, and expert guidance.  The press release indicates that this is the only resource of its kind available on an integrated legal research and business intelligence platform. The E-Discovery Practice Center will be available to all Bloomberg Law subscribers at no additional cost.

The practice center’s home page features high value content including a curated collection of fully searchable state and federal court opinions, state-specific discovery guidance and rules, and BNA’s E-Discovery Portfolio series.  I don’t recall seeing a collection of state ediscovery rules in any other product. Since ediscovery touches on a wide range of complex issues, the E-Discovery Center links to other BloombergBNA materials in related disciplines. Including: cross-border data transfers, government and internal investigations, and data and privacy security. 
Continue Reading Bloomberg Law Launches 15th Practice Center: E-Discovery

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

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

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