AI Litigation Analytics: A Fad Or The Future?

A dive into Context by LexisNexis.

When I began my career as an assistant public defender in the mid-1990s, our office had somewhat of a strategic advantage over other lawyers, in part because we handled so many cases and were in our assigned court day in and day out. By handling so many cases in front of a given judge, we quickly learned the judge’s idiosyncrasies and subconscious biases. We were able to ascertain patterns in their rulings and determine which types of arguments and motions worked best with that judge, and then use that information to our clients’ advantage. And when we left that court and turned our caseload over to another public defender, we passed along all of the knowledge that we’d learned about a particular judge’s tendencies.

Most lawyers aren’t able to do this. Instead, they’ll talk to one or two lawyers to learn about a judge and then do the best they can with the limited information obtained. This is because the collective knowledge about the ins and outs of handling cases before a particular judge gleaned by and shared between a group of lawyers in a large office like a public defender’s office has always been a rarity. But in recent years, that’s changed in large part due to new technological advances.

If you follow legal technology news at all, you’ve no doubt been hearing a lot about the tremendous potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning and how these technologies will — and are — impacting the practice of law. It’s certainly a topic I’ve been interested in, and I’ve written about it a number of times over the past year or so.

One particular area where AI will undoubtedly be useful is in litigation. Vast amounts of digital data have been collected and are readily accessible since PACER became available via the internet in 2001. According to Wikipedia, in 2013 PACER included over 500 million documents, and that number has increased significantly since then.

Of course it’s one thing to amass large amounts of data, but it’s another to make sense of that data and then use it to provide useful, actionable information for lawyers. Up until recently, available technology tools simply weren’t up to the task — there was too much data and an inability to harness it.

Enter AI and machine learning. The recent maturation of the foundational technologies needed to support machine learning have made advanced data analytics and sophisticated language processing possible on a scale never before seen. Using these tools, massive amounts of PACER and other litigation-related data can be sifted through, organized and analyzed in mere seconds.

Over the past year, I’ve had a number of opportunities to speak with representatives from companies that offer litigation analytics software, and have learned a lot about how this software works and how it benefits lawyers. But up until recently, I never had a chance to take it for a test drive so that I could experience it myself.

Sponsored

Fortunately, that changed when LexisNexis provided me with complimentary access to Context, its judge and expert witness analytics tool that is part of its Lexis Analytics suite. Context is the result of LexisNexis’ recent acquisition of Ravel Law and is the end result of the incorporation of that software into LexisNexis’ platform.

It includes in its database court data for all federal courts, some state appellate and supreme court data, and a growing list of trial courts, including case law and court orders. From the searches I ran, I found that the data for the federal court judges is the most robust, whereas it can be somewhat limited or missing entirely for state appellate and trial level judges.

After trying out the software, I’m really impressed by both its clean, user-friendly interface and its utility. The information provided is extensive, easily accessible, and of great value to litigators.

First, there’s the judge analytics tool, which offers insight into the rulings and decision-making processes of judges by providing insight into whether a particular type of motion will be successful if brought before a given judge.

When you search for a federal judge, the initial result that you see is basic information about the judge including their professional background, contact information, and a summary of opinion types handed down. I ran a search for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and this was the initial result.

Sponsored

But the really useful information can be obtained when you drill down into the results by clicking on the tabs at the top of the page. So, if you click on the “Analytics” tab, you’re first provided with a chart showing the outcomes of the different types of motions that she’s decided over the years. By default, on the righthand side of that page you’ll see a list of the cases she’s decided that relate to the first type of motion listed, “motion to dismiss.”

But you can obtain information about any of the types of motions listed by clicking on a specific motion type. For example, if you click on “motion for intervention,” you’ll be provided with the 3 opinions she’s authored that address that motion, including an indication of how she ruled on that motion in each case. This data will help you decide which procedural mechanism will have the greatest likelihood of success in obtaining a desired result in a given case.

Next, if you click the “Citation Patterns” tab on the analytics page, you’ll see a list of her most frequently cited opinions along with a snippet of the most common language used by her when citing the case. You can then click on and view the cases that are of interest to you.

You also have the option of clicking on the “Judges” tab. Once you do so, you’ll see the list of citations sorted by the names of the judges who authored the opinions.

Finally, if you click on the “Related Materials” tab, you’ll be provided with a full list of cases that she’s decided, along with the ability to sort and filter the cases using the category tabs in the lefthand sidebar.

So, for example, in the image below, you’ll see that I filtered the cases by limiting the results to a particular attorney and a particular type of practice area/topic.

Then there’s the expert witness analytics tools which provides data about an expert witness’ involvement in past litigation, including CVs, which side they were on, and, if applicable, whether their testimony (or parts of it) were excluded. What you initially see after running a search for an expert witness is an overview of that expert’s credentials and prior testimony, including which party s/he testified for, the number of cases, areas of law, and jurisdictions.

The “Analytics” section provides you with information regarding any challenges to the expert’s testimony and the outcome of that challenge, along with links to any relevant opinions.

Finally, the “Related Materials’ tab provides you with a list of opinions that address to the expert’s testimony along with the ability to sort and filter the cases using any number of different categories.

So if you’ve been wondering what all the AI fuss is about, Context is a great example of how this emerging technology will change the practice of law. AI makes it possible for lawyers to easily access and analyze large amounts of data, and then quickly drill down into the data to obtain incredibly relevant information that can be used to gain a strategic advantage. LexisNexis isn’t the only company offering tools like this — Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg Law are, too, along with many small legal technology startups.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are the wave of the future and will have an incredible impact on the legal industry. I’ll be writing about some of these technologies in a few weeks once I’m back from Legalweek 2019, so make sure to tune in then to learn even more about how the practice of law will be shaped by this emerging, powerful technology.


Niki BlackNicole Black is a Rochester, New York attorney and the Legal Technology Evangelist at MyCase, web-based law practice management software. She’s been blogging since 2005, has written a weekly column for the Daily Record since 2007, is the author of Cloud Computing for Lawyers, co-authors Social Media for Lawyers: the Next Frontier, and co-authors Criminal Law in New York. She’s easily distracted by the potential of bright and shiny tech gadgets, along with good food and wine. You can follow her on Twitter @nikiblack and she can be reached at niki.black@mycase.com.

CRM Banner