When Thomson Reuters unveiled its next-generation Westlaw Edge last July, it was the first time its legal research platform featured integrated litigation analytics, providing detailed docket analytics covering judges, courts, attorneys. and law firms, for both federal and state courts.
It was significant news, not only because analytics are fast becoming must-have tools for litigators, but also because Westlaw’s biggest competitor, LexisNexis, was making significant strides in developing its own analytics, driven by its acquisitions of Lex Machina and Ravel Law. In fact, on the same day that Thomson Reuters announced Westlaw Edge. LexisNexis launched Lexis Analytics, pulling together all of its major analytics products.
Now, Thomson Reuters is further enhancing its analytics offerings with the addition of Precedent Analytics, which it is rolling out to Westlaw Edge subscribers today and will be showing this week at Legalweek in New York. Precedent Analytics lets users see the citation patterns of individual judges, revealing the cases, courts, judges and citation language they rely on in deciding different legal issues. It also shows the frequency with which judges have dealt with different issues.
Here again, there are parallels to LexisNexis. In November, it launched Context, a product derived from Ravel Law that analyzes the language of specific judges’ opinions to identify the cases and arguments the judge finds persuasive. Whereas litigation analytics are generally based on data from court dockets, both Precedent Analytics and Context are based on analysis of case law and rulings.
During a media briefing last week, Jeff Arvidson, director of product management at Thomson Reuters, said that the company has been developing Precedent Analytics for more than two years and that it is unlike any other analytics product on the market. What makes it unique, he said, is its integration with West’s Key Number system.
Precedent Analytics appears
