In the digital age, looking at attorney stats can be like staring down the barrel of a never-ending baseball card collection. There's probably some useful information in there somewhere if you've got some reading glasses and two or three hours to kill.

Bloomberg Law is looking to simplify matters with Attorney Analytics, a new addition to its Litigation analytics tool that debuted earlier this week at the Association of Corporate Counsel conference in Austin, Texas. The product is meant to give users a sharper eye—or at least a better view—when it comes to evaluating outside counsel, and could fortify Bloomberg's position in the domain of legal analytics.

What it is: Attorney Analytics is an extension of the information already compiled on law firms, companies and federal district court judges inside Bloomberg Law's analytic suite.

According to David Kleiman, a manager on Bloomberg Law's product team, this newest feature will provide stats on over 100,000 lawyers, from companies and cases they've represented in court to more standard biographical information such as education and career history. It also tracks related news items and allows users to spot trends in a attorney's litigation history.

Why It's Necessary: The world has become increasingly cluttered with data, and one of the major forces driving the development of Attorney Analytics was the ability to target, organize and understand the information associated with research intensive tasks like litigation.

“It's really a way to quickly get and use the information you're looking for,” Kleiman said.

Users can boil data points down to the important criteria that maps the shape of a career. For example, if a firm was about to face a particular lawyer in court, they could access a “snapshot” of their opponent's case history, profiling who they've represented and their areas of experience.

It could also potentially save HR a step or two during the hiring process by providing a sort of unofficial resume. “Do they have experience in the types of cases that you're company is facing? Do they have experience in the specific jurisdictions where a case is being brought against your company?” Kleiman said.

Under the Hood: Attorney Analytics runs on a combination of machine learning and a team of legal data analysts that “teach” the algorithm how to pull the right information so that all the names and facts line up correctly. The biggest challenge is tracking 100,000 attorneys, 700-plus law firms and 3.5 million private companies, and normalizing the relevant information to a specific name.

“You could imagine all of the different ways that an attorney's name might be spelled on a federal docket, and that goes for a law firm and a company as well,” Kleiman said.

The Competition: Today's consumers have their pick of analytics: Companies such as Thomson Reuters, LexisNexis' Lex Machina, and Mindcrest all market products offering data-driven insight to provide firms with a competitive edge in court. Kleiman believes that Bloomberg's user-based approach will help Attorney Analytics stand out from the pack.

“We spent a lot of time focusing on the user experience and making it very easy for attorneys, even attorneys who aren't necessary familiar with technology or feel comfortable with technology,” Kleiman said.

He also pointed out Bloomberg's willingness to continually update its stockpile of data with new or updated information.

“Bloomberg also is well known for its company information and our dockets products, I think, is market leading,” Kleiman said.