Ever since LexisNexis acquired the legal analytics platform Lex Machina in November 2015, the plan has been to integrate Lex Machina across a range of LexisNexis products and, in particular, its Lexis Advance legal research platform. Today at the Legalweek conference in New York, LexisNexis officially launched the first stage of that integration, judge analytics.
Now, as a user is looking at a case in Lexis Advance, if the judge’s name shows an active link, the user can click on that to access summary analytics about the judge from Lex Machina. This will work only for the practice areas Lex Machina covers — patent, trademark, copyright, antitrust and securities — but Lex Machina is expected to significantly expand the practice areas it covers during the coming months.
The three screenshots accompanying this post show different portions of the summary screen, as if scrolling from top to bottom. As you can see, the Lex Machina analytics show information such as number of open cases, when the cases were filed, and the timing from case filing to significant events in the case.
Users who also have a subscription to Lex Machina will be able to start from the summary analytics in Lexis Advance and then drill deeper in Lex Machina’s full array of analytics.
Further integration of Lex Machina analytics—including attorney and law firm summaries—is planned for later this year.
This move is part of a larger strategy by LexisNexis to better integrate and leverage all its data across a wider range of platforms, both its own internally built platforms and external applications, Jeff Pfeifer, vice president of product management for North American Research Solutions, told me.
“Our overall objective is to organize our solutions in better and cleaner workflows,” Pfeifer said. “We want to support the data-driven lawyer, the person who really is using data in new ways to drive insights for their clients.”
The company has been focused on making greater use of emerging technologies such as predictive analytics and machine learning to enhance researchers’ judgments, he said.
It is also working towards enabling its users to realize a fully integrated workflow that ties together its four key products: Lexis Advance for legal research, Lexis Practice Advisor for practical guidance, Lexis Search Advantage for enterprise search, and Lexis for Microsoft Office for document drafting and review.
Yesterday, LexisNexis announced a step in developing this workflow with the integration of Lexis Practice Advisor and Lexis Search Advantage.