The Goodson Blogson

Today, Lexis Advance launched its new Context product for legal analytics, currently featuring analysis for judges and expert witnesses. Lexis users at Duke Law can access this new tool from the grid in the top left corner of any Lexis Advance screen. (Be sure to choose "Context" and not "Litigation Profile Suite" – although the latter tool also includes profiles of judges and expert witnesses, these are separate products and do not appear to cross-link.) [ Update: currently, Context access is available only to Law School faculty; student accounts will see the new product on January 2.] If the Context report interface looks a bit familiar, you may have seen a similar version for judges on Ravel Law , the legal research start-up which Lexis acquired last year . Profiles for Judges include biographical information as well as "Analysis" data about motion outcomes, most-cited opinions and judges, and even the specific passages upon which the judge relies...

When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his intent to retire from the Court earlier this week, speculation immediately began as to the identity of the next Court nominee. Back in November 2017, the White House released a list of 25 potential U.S. Supreme Court nominees from the federal and state benches, and the President confirmed this week that the next nominee would be a member of that shortlist. Online oddsmakers have been busily tracking the most likely nominees, with Brett Kavanaugh of the D.C. Circuit and Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Circuit as the current front-runners. The Washington Post has written brief summaries of the likeliest nominees , but there are additional resources available to conduct research on these or any other judges. Many are listed in the library's guide to Directories of Courts & Judges . Highlights include: Almanac of the Federal Judiciary (online in Westlaw & Wolters Kluwer ): A unique biographical directory f...

Today, LexisNexis announced that it has acquired Ravel Law ( press release ). Developed by a team of Stanford Law graduates in 2012, Ravel quickly became known for its visual presentation of case law search results ( ABA Journal 2014 cover story ), and later for its ambitious partnership with Harvard Law Library to digitize historical case reporters and make them freely available to researchers. (Lexis, Ravel, and Harvard each confirmed in separate statements that the acquisition will not change the Caselaw Access Project 's mission to provide open access to historical case law materials.) Ravel also became known for its data analytics products, including Judge Analytics and Court Analytics, both featured in the Goodson Law Library research guide Directories of Courts & Judges . (A new product, Firm Analytics , was also recently announced, but is not yet available for subscriber trial access.) Ravel will continue to operate under its current web interface until the end ...

Data analytics are a rapidly-growing feature in legal research services. From the intellectual property predictive analysis in Lex Machina (now owned by LexisNexis) to the recently-unveiled Bloomberg Law Litigation Analytics , many legal research services are offering their users charts, tables, and other information about the connections between court opinions and orders, lawyers, judges, and companies. Judges are a particularly interesting use case. Most research services provide a basic biographical profile of current judges, along with links to their full-text opinions and orders. However, some research services provide a bit more analysis and examination of individual judges. The Judge Analytics module of  Ravel Law , featured in Forbes earlier this year, is one example of the possibilities. Duke Law students, faculty, and staff may request an Educational Account. Judge Analytics' coverage includes current and historical federal judges, as well as current state appell...