Lawyers are often seen as risk-averse and partial to long-established processes and practices, but in recent years, the legal profession has changed and modernized drastically. It has incorporated technology in ways that impact an attorney's ability to practice more efficiently and effectively. One of these modernizations is the adoption and utilization of litigation analytics, which provides data-driven insights into the past litigation records of law firms, attorneys, courts, and judges regarding trends in findings, damages, resolutions, and remedies.

Litigation analytics has become more than prevalent in the practice of law — in many ways, it has become necessary. The ability to analyze litigation patterns and trends has proven to be valuable in every facet of the legal profession; in fact, Lex Machina supplies legal analytics to law firms, companies, courts, government agencies and judges. Now that practitioners are seeing their clients, opposing counsel, and even judges employing litigation analytics and relying on the underlying data, it's crucial to discuss two key questions: what makes good legal data and what happens when you rely on bad data?

Litigation analytics can be considered a roadmap of sorts — an important guide to ensure the legal professional arrives at the correct litigation strategy or business plan. However, like roadmaps, litigation analytics will only be useful if it's based on data that is complete and accurate. A roadmap that is missing key cities or contains nonexistent roads is more than useless — it's dangerous and can lead the traveler astray. The same is true for litigation analytics — it can be an incredibly powerful tool that empowers attorneys with the winning edge over opponents or competitors, but only if it is complete and accurate. Otherwise, they can end up lost.