Intellectual Property

There is a lot of talk about what the future holds for legal data analytics. That's expected; it's fun to prognosticate. But Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase, says the future of legal data analytics isn't a cool new start-up or a big feature from Thomson Reuters or LexisNexis. It's Facebook.

“I'll be the first to say that has really good connotations and really bad connotations. … It's really nothing more than a big analytics platform. Litigation status: It's complicated.”

A panel titled “The Future of Analytics” at the 2019 American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Annual Meeting agreed that legal analytics are in their early stages. However, there was optimism among the panel that growth is on the horizon, as long as some of the technical and data collection issues can be figured out.

Jeff Arvidson, director of product management at Thomson Reuters, noted that a lot of legal analytics companies are currently building applications that parse through data. However, “I think in five years from now, that insight will be presented to you before you [press] tab, tab, filter,” he explained.

He added, “Right now, we're in day one of finding relationships and putting the burden on the user [to know what we have] and to learn an application. If you're doing securities research, we should know you're doing securities research.”

Platforms become more intelligent and presenting information to users up front will come as data sets increasingly become more integrated. As Josh Becker, head of legal analytics at LexisNexis and chairman of Lex Machina, pointed to a merger of billing, litigation and other internal data, noting that “tying the information is what we're going to see in the next couple of years.”

Todd Barton, senior director of product management at Bloomberg Law cautioned that “we're sort of at the beginning here,” but added, “I think some of the great opportunity is taking some of the qualitative data… and marrying some of those things with the quantitative data we already have can reveal some really deep insights.”

However, pooling such large data sets could also run some firms and law libraries into privacy concerns. Moderator Bob Ambrogi, founder of the LawSites blog, asked the panelists whether customers should be concerned that platforms are re-selling data. Walters answered that if customers are concerned, they should look at their data agreements.

“If you want to understand why companies can't do this, look at the privacy policy. If the policy says your data is sacrosanct, you can take that to the bank,” he explained.

And on the other side, Barton added, “If you're not sure, you should be petrified.”

But the legal industry may be approaching a day when using analytics is not only encouraged, but necessary. Walters drew an analogy to the days of legal research before online tools: If you missed a case, “Nobody would think twice about it. How would you know?” he asked. But now, “You do have an obligation to find those most recent cases. And analytics will be no different.”

But the industry is not there yet. Barton noted that especially given the results of an earlier AALL comparative study of analytics platforms, “we probably have a bit more progress to get there, in terms of everybody working from the same side.”

The audience of law librarians agreed; the Q&A portion of the program included pointed questions about mistakes in the data, as well as issues with knowledge and transparency of companies' sales teams.

The answers to these questions will provide an opportunity for differentiation between platforms— Amy Towell, chief operating officer of Docket Navigator, received applause after a call for shorter or non-existent pricing contracts. But in total, the panel agreed that the overall growth of the legal analytics industry is a primary goal.

“There are going to be a lot of errors in the data, let's be up front about that. … It doesn't need to be adversarial. If you find an error, tell us. We love to get that cleaned up,” Walters said.

Arvidson echoed the point concerning transparency and collaboration, referring to a question from an earlier panel about incomplete state court data. “There's nuance to every single question right now. … We'll get there, but for now, we're finding these relationships and it's a challenge.”