One of the best things about my blog is interviewing and watching lawyers transform their ” there’s gotta be a better way” moment into a product. One of the worst thing about my blog is having to report when a start-up has to shut down. In this case the lawyer was Rick Merrill who I interviewed for my
first Gavelytics post. Gavelytics has been one of my favorite, feisty legal tech start-ups. It offered truly unique content for California litigation practice and then expanded across the country. I wrote my first Gavelytics post Gavelytics: California State Court Analytics Developed by Lawyers for Lawyers in October 2017. Over the past that 5 years , I wrote 9 additional posts as Gavelytics expanded to new states, launched Gavelytics 2.0, added a Business Development tool, KM features, partners, APIs and was granted a visualization tool patent.
Gavelytics launched with several unique California features:
- Motion Analyzer compares each judges rulings to the overall average rulings of other judges on over 100 motion types
- Judicial Workload – compared to the average judge workload
- Gavel Score – is an indicator of whether a judge tends to rule for plaintiffs or defendants.
- Sec. 170.6 analyzer. The California Code of Civil Procedure gives parties the right to make a peremptory motion to disqualify a judge which must be granted. Analytics into how often both plaintiffs and defendants make such motions provides insights into how often and on what types of cases and by which party has each judge been removed in a 170.6 challenge.
According to a letter CEO Rick Merrill sent to customers, Gavelytics will be shutting down and the website will go dark tomorrow June 30, 2022. Here is the text from the letter: “Gavelytics, will be ceasing all operations and shutting its doors permanently. The company’s board of directors made this difficult decision after extensive consultation with the company’s outside legal and financial advisors and following long-term efforts to locate a financial partner.”
Several weeks ago there was an article indicating that VC money for legal tech was contracting. I am so sad to hear that a company that in my opinion offered one of the best legal analytics products is a victim of the current financial contraction.
This is a developing story.
