Innovative Law Firms Pioneer Mining Unique Insights with Artificial Intelligence and Legal Data

 

Washington, DC (April 25, 2018) – Fastcase, known among the legal research industry for applying a smarter approach by incorporating technology and algorithms to assist in online legal research, today announces the debut of its Artificial Intelligence Sandbox alongside several law firms, each known for their innovative and tech-forward approaches to knowledge and information management.

 

Leading innovative law firms including as BakerHostetler, DLA Piper, Baker Donelson, and a host of other pioneering law firms are leveraging the AI Sandbox and participating in the developers group. Fastcase’s AI Sandbox is a customized first-of-its-kind platform that allows law firms to use artificial intelligence in a secure environment to crunch their own big data, compare it with public legal data or metadata from Fastcase, and analyze it using cognitive intelligence tools such as IBM Watson Analytics and Watson Developer Cloud.

 

Law firms and legal industry professionals now have the capability through the AI Sandbox to make more data-driven informed decisions. For example, litigators can create a Brief Bank and search for legal issues in their firms’ Knowledge Management system. Corporate attorneys searching UCC filings can quickly run a comprehensive machine learning analysis of filed UCC agreements that show interest rates, security requirements, payment schedules, default penalties, liquidity and notification requirements, and other selected areas of interest. Faculty and students at law schools can conduct research on legal trends and law school librarians can use the Fastcase AI Sandbox to manage these overwhelmingly data-driven research projects.

 

“As Knowledge and Information Management professionals, part of our job is to help the firm stay updated with the latest and greatest technology-based tools, so adding the AI Sandbox is an obvious decision,” said Katherine Lowry, Director of Practice Services, BakerHostetler. “This will enrich BakerHostetler’s advanced collection of resources and promises to provide the firm and its clients with unique insights garnered through the firm’s custom data sets,” she added.

 

Each law firm is distinctive and can choose to upload data to the secure AI Sandbox platform exclusively with firm insights, or collaborate, compare, and combine with other data sets, such as data derived from the Fastcase’s leading collection of judicial opinions, statutes, or regulations, or structured metadata such as citation relationships or docket metadata from Docket Alarm. Participating firms can also harness comparative data derived through other collaborative partners, for example creating a project that conducts a Regulatory Alert Service.

 

“As part of the firm’s overall innovation strategy we are partnering with Fastcase to leverage the AI sandbox,” said Jean O’Grady, Sr. Director of Research and Knowledge Services, DLA Piper, US LLP. “We believe Sandbox will provide us with the ability to extract powerful insights from our own internal data when combined with the Fastcase caselaw and docket analytics.”

 

“In the next decade, firms and companies will differentiate themselves by the insights and efficiencies they create with data,” said Fastcase CEO Ed Walters. “Firms that use artificial intelligence – that really get their hands in the mix, beyond merely subscribing to services that use it – those firms will separate themselves from the pack. Insights garnered from legal data will create the differentiated legal services of the 2020s,” he added. “This isn’t read-only AI – it’s read-write AI for America’s best legal departments. Everyone using read-only tools receives the same insights, but those who leverage read-write tools like the AI Sandbox are now capable of providing exclusively curated insights because the tools and the data used in them are unique.”

 

Fastcase will continue to add more public legal data, as well as access to new AI tools, to the Sandbox product. In its initial release, the AI Sandbox will contain dozens of artificial intelligence tools and legal data sets, including dozens of APIs from the IBM Watson Developer Cloud, indexing and visualization software from ElasticSearch, expert system platform Neota Logic, ContraxSuite, a machine learning tool for contract and document analytics from LexPredict, customized expert witness content from Courtroom Insight, and many other tools. The platform will include legal data from Fastcase as well as docket data from leading docket analytics provider Docket Alarm, which was acquired by Fastcase in January 2018.

 

“Understanding data like a lawyer is one of the most important emerging legal skills. Firms and legal departments that have invested in their data operations will gain insights from the AI Sandbox,” Walters said. “But even firms without sophisticated data operations will be able to use our machine learning tools to give structure to their information, or to extract data and insights from it. What’s most exciting is that legal departments in a Sandbox environment can create insights that we can’t even imagine yet. We’re creating the future right here.”

 

To learn more about the AI Sandbox, contact Sean Tate at 202.999.4698 or state@fastcase.com.

 

About Fastcase

As the smarter alternative for legal research, Fastcase democratizes the law, making it more accessible to more people. Using patented software that combines the best of legal research with the best of Web search, Fastcase helps busy users sift through the clutter, ranking the best cases first and enabling the re-sorting of results to find answers fast. Founded in 1999, Fastcase has more than 800,000 subscribers from around the world. Fastcase is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, follow Fastcase on Twitter at @Fastcase, or visit www.fastcase.com.