Robert Ambrogi Blog
A box in the right column shows Cooley’s client alerts that discuss the case.
The legal research site Ravel Law has partnered with the law firm Cooley LLP to pair Cooley’s client alerts with the court opinions in Ravel that they discuss.
Now, if the court opinion you view in Ravel was ever discussed or cited in a Cooley alert, the two are linked. When viewing the case, a box appears to the right titled “Featured analysis by Cooley.” The box shows a snippet of the alert that discusses the case and provides a link to the full alert. If multiple alerts discussed the case, the linked page lists them all.
Last week, I wrote about another legal research site, Casetext, that is planning to do something similar by adding law firm client alerts distributed via JD Supra.
This makes a lot of sense. Law firm client alerts typically provide in-depth analysis and thoughtful perspective on developments in the law. For someone who is performing legal research, alerts that discuss a case can provide a quick way to understand its holding and significance. Ravel founder Daniel Lewis described it to me as “targeted insight at the right moment.”
Normally, these alerts are not readily available. Adding them into a legal research site is a win-win, benefiting the site’s users with added useful content and benefiting the firm by bringing new eyes to the materials it generates.
Lewis said that Ravel hopes to add alerts from other firms as well.
If you are not familiar with Ravel, see the article I wrote for the ABA Journal about “visual law,” in which Ravel was featured. Ravel is distinct from traditional legal research platforms in its use of visualization to map out search results. In addition to listing results, it draws a map of them, showing the relationships among cases and their relative importance to each other.
Ravel offers free and paid subscription plans. Access to the client alerts requires a paid subscription.