A brand new instrument from the litigation analytics firm Lex Machina, which is owned by LexisNexis, permits attorneys to view visible maps of a celebration’s litigation historical past with a view to assist illuminate the occasion’s relationships and litigation tendencies that may not in any other case be apparent however that may very well be a consider crafting a litigation technique or pitching new enterprise.
Known as Litigation Footprint, it gives a visible overview of the federal and state courts throughout the nation during which a celebration has litigated, derived from the litigation histories of events in over 27 million circumstances filed in 94 federal district courts and over 1,300 state courts in 34 states and the District of Columbia.
“This characteristic is basically assembly the shopper request to supply the very broadest view of what’s taking place with litigation for events,” Carla Rydholm, head of product at Lex Machina, advised me throughout an illustration.
To create this new product, Lex Machina added greater than 18 million state courtroom data to the greater than 9 million federal and state courtroom data it already had. Most of those new data lack the enhancements and tagging of Lex Machina’s present courtroom knowledge — enhancements that allow the analytics platform for which the corporate is thought.
Nevertheless, the brand new data embody the knowledge mandatory for the Litigation Footprint, together with normalized names throughout courts and jurisdictions. Lex Machina says it now has 134 million normalized names — almost double what it had earlier than including these new circumstances. (Title normalization ensures {that a} seek for a specific title consists of all variations and aliases that will seem in courtroom data.)
Litigation Footprint consists of each these enhanced circumstances and these newly added fundamental circumstances. When outcomes embody enhanced circumstances, the person will be capable to click on by means of to see the complete Lex Machina analytics.
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Profile knowledge and trade codes for the occasion, in addition to circumstances by occasion and federal district courtroom circumstances by kind.
How one can Use It
To view a celebration’s Litigation Footprint, the person merely goes to the party-search tab inside Lex Machina and selects a celebration to look, or a bunch of events (similar to an organization and its subsidiaries).
Litigation Footprint then exhibits two side-by-side arrays of grids, every roughly approximating the map of the U.S. One map is for federal courtroom circumstances and the opposite is for state courtroom circumstances. Every dice within the grid represents a state, and every is dynamically color-coded to point out the quantity of circumstances inside that state. The maps might present {that a} occasion has quite a lot of litigation in some jurisdictions and none in others.
The person can click on on any state to see an expanded listing of the courts in that state and the numbers of circumstances for that occasion in every. For any courtroom for which Lex Machina has enhanced knowledge, the courtroom title exhibits as a hyperlink and the person can click on by means of to the complete analytics for the occasion in that courtroom.
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State courtroom filters to point out solely circumstances with a celebration within the automotive trade.
The person additionally has the choice of operating a report back to see all of the issues involving that occasion. The report, exported within the type of an Excel file, exhibits all of the occasion’s issues, together with case title, case ID, occasion position, occasion title, date filed, and different info.
Though, as talked about, Litigation Footprint can search circumstances for a celebration group, it can’t seek for overlap between events. In different phrases, if I needed to look to see the courts during which each Apple and Samsung had litigation, I must search every individually after which cross-reference the outcomes alone.
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Federal courtroom circumstances filtered to point out solely these with an organization headquartered in Canada.
Litigation Footprint additionally permits searches to be filtered by trade, NAICS code, worker rely, and headquarters nation.
Rydholm stated that is simply the primary model of this product and that person suggestions will drive its additional improvement.
“We’ll positively be searching for quite a lot of person enter on what to do to maintain folks actually engaged, with a workflow that’s significant, and that … helps them get to the subsequent part of pondering deeply, making choices, and doing one thing actionable.”
Product Use Instances
What’s the use case for Litigation Footprint, based on Rydholm, the functions most cited by prospects to this point are:
- Enterprise improvement.
- Aggressive intelligence.
- Communication with shoppers and for authorized groups.
- Danger profiles and venue tendencies.
- State courtroom case docket administration.
- State courtroom case technique and civil process analysis.
She stated that some prospects discover the state courtroom knowledge significantly helpful, as there was a niche of their potential to know what is occurring in these courts.
“Simply figuring out concerning the circumstances at first blush is the start line — assembling probably the most full mapping of what’s occurred earlier than after which deciding to have your workforce dig in, relying on the venue, is the massive one,” she stated.
Increasing Protection
As I’ve famous earlier than, ever since LexisNexis acquired Lex Machina in 2015, the corporate has been increasing its courtroom analytics, each by increasing its federal courtroom analytics into new observe areas and by increasing its protection of state courts.
Since 2015, when Lex Machina coated 91,000 federal circumstances, it has steadily grown to the place, by the top of 2023, it had almost 5 million state circumstances and greater than 4.1 million federal circumstances.
Litigation Footprint provides one other 18 million state circumstances to that complete. Though, as famous above, a lot of these should not enhanced for strong knowledge analytics, the corporate is consistently working to develop the numbers of enhanced circumstances in its assortment, Rydholm stated.