In this corner: CARA, the original AI-powered brief-analysis tool introduced in 2016 by the legal research company Casetext.
In the other corner: Well, no one really, except empty seats behind name cards bearing the names of other brief-analysis products and an audience of curious onlookers.
But its competitors’ no-shows did not stop Casetext from going on with what it billed as the Legal Robot Battle, held in a hotel suite during the annual meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries in Washington, D.C.
This was the second robot battle Casetext staged. Last year, after ROSS Intelligence unveiled its brief-analysis tool EVA, Casetext challenged ROSS to a robot fight during Legaltech in New York. ROSS declined, but Casetext went ahead, and I was there to broadcast it all via Facebook Live.
For round two, Casetext challenged newcomers Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg Law, which each announced products last week (here and here), as well as other established tools. Once again, those challenged were n0-shows. And once again, the show went on anyway, with Casetext CEO Jake Heller and Chief Product Officer Pablo Arredondo doing their best to play the roles of all the missing robots.
And once again, I was there to broadcast it on Facebook Live. Below is the video I recorded. Beware, it’s a bit shaky, thanks to my lack of tripod.
So who won? Clearly, Casetext did, managing to pull off a great publicity stunt in front of a roomful of influential law librarians.
