Thomson Reuters has introduced Quick Check Judicial, a new Westlaw Edge feature within Quick Check. Although this 
new AI-based feature was designed for judges it will also drive lawyer efficiency. Quick Check Judicial allows users to upload multiple briefs or memos from a single matter to surface highly relevant authority that neither party included. It also identifies which citations are cited by both parties or only one party and conducts and automated review of citations and quotations.
Quick Check Judicial provides the standard Quick Check efficiencies: checking validity and accuracy of citations and quotations. The comparison of multiple documents is a force multiplier which enables judges and lawyers to see a single report listing: authority relied on by both parties, providing a view into any overlap or divergence; finding relevant cases cited by neither party and identify quotation discrepancies.
The press release provides insights from a retired judge. Justice Randy J. Holland, retired, Delaware Supreme Court, noted the value Quick Check Judicial provides. “From a judge’s point of view, you want to be confident that you understand each party’s position and you want to be confident that you understand the state of the law. Quick Check Judicial allows you to do that efficiently and accurately.”
“In our conversations with customers, they reiterated the importance of ensuring that nothing is missed or omitted in their own documents, but maybe even more importantly knowing what different information was or was not used by opposing counsel,” said Carol Jo Lechtenberg, senior director, Westlaw Product Management. “Quick Check Judicial delivers that insight and more, all while saving a substantial amount of time for lawyers but proving equally as valuable for judges and law clerks by providing a holistic view of the matters before them.”
Westlaw Edge was developed by attorneys and technologists at the Thomson Reuters Center for Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Computing working together to apply cutting-edge AI technologies to attorney-authored content and powerful legal research tools.
Quick Check Use Cases. Quick Check launched in July of 2019 as part of Westlaw Edge. In an earlier post I described the Quick Check use cases which include: Updating an old brief, quality checking a working draft and performing final check before submitting a brief to a court. Lawyers can also examine an opponent’s brief and motions to gain insight into “omitted authority” or vulnerabilities. With the launch of Quick Check Judicial lawyers have been given a new tool for driving deeper analysis and eliminating the need for running multiple Quick Check reports on separate documents.
The technology behind Quick Check simultaneously analyses the structure of the document while executing several search strategies, crawling primary and secondary sources and following citation networks, leveraging the key number system, court and other data attributes. Quick Check normally completes its analysis in less than a minute. The Quick Check report enables and attorneys to quickly see a multitude of tags and indicators which validate the cited authorities or suggest additional or better precedents for each issue.
Market Impact Quick Check Judicial marks the second significant enhancement to Quick Check following the addition of Quotation Analysis in April. Although there has been quite a bit of activity in the brief checking market, Westlaw Edge Quick Check is the first to offer the simultaneous analysis of multiple documents. It is also a smart marketing strategy for Thomson Reuters to position a tool as helping judges to compare brief and memos submitted by each side and quickly see which party “did their homework.” A start up named Casetext created the brief analysis market with the launch of Cara. All the major legal research platforms ( LexisNexis, Bloomberg) and well as smaller competitors (Ross (Eva) and VLex (Vincent) have entered the brief analysis space. The law firms and their clients have benefited from the competitive forces driving efficiencies into traditional legal workflow.
No additional Cost In this time of belt tightening, existing Westlaw Edge customers will be happy to learn that Quick Check Judicial is available at no additional charge to all Westlaw Edge subscribers.
