LexisNexis Context for Courts.

Studying the ruling habits of a court can be daunting when you're staring at thousands of opinions and rulings. In a bid to curb some of that pressure, LexisNexis released LexisNexis Context for Courts. 

LexisNexis Context for Courts is the expansion of last year's LexisNexis Context and a part of Lexis Analytics suite.

While LexisNexis Context focused on analyzing judges' language in opinions, motions and rulings, Context for Courts is instead focusing on the decisions made by a court as a whole.

The broader scope of the expansion is intended to assist litigators and legal researchers who are filing a matter before a judge is assigned or deciding what prospective venue to bring a matter. 

What it Is: Similar to the LexisNexis Context product, Context for Courts mines court dockets and opinions of all U.S. court systems, excluding administrative court decisions, to provide an overview of a court's motion decisions, opinions cited and practices the court rules on.

When examining a court's motion outcomes, a Context for Courts user not only sees the total motion decisions by a court during a specified time period, but also the number of cases granted, denied or partially granted. Along with the case citation and a link to the opinion, the user can also see the exact language given to grant, deny or partially grant a motion. LexisNexis senior director Nicholas Reed noted this feature as one a lawyer or legal researcher should find particularly valuable. 

Under the Hood: While the opinions, legal documents and dockets Context for Courts scours are provided by LexisNexis' trove of legal documents, the technology powering Context for Courts is based on Ravel Law, a company Reed co-founded and was COO of before it was acquired by LexisNexis in 2017.

The competition: To be sure, Context for Courts isn't the first legal tech court analyzer platform. Thomson Reuters' Westlaw Edge 2018 update included a judges, courts, law firms and attorney data analyzer. Likewise, Bloomberg Law also has a judge analysis platform, similar to startup Gavelytics's platform, which expanded its scope to judges in Florida, Texas and Illinois. Fastcase also extended its legal analytics capabilities when it acquired Docket Alarm, a platform that analyzes federal and bankruptcy courts and filings and rulings in the Patent Trial and Appeal Board; International Trade Commission; and Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

Reed noted Context for Courts differentiates itself from fellow court data analyzers by its focus on contextual analysis and fully understanding and showing how judges are using opinions in their decisions.