Today's issue of TL NewsWire covers software that makes it easier to mine your firm's work product for model documents (see article below). In addition, you'll find links to the previous 11 TL NewsWire features, including our coverage of a new Android and iOS app for a popular practice management system, a virtual desktop service with two factor authentication, a new practice management app that launched after five years in development, case analysis software, and much more. Don't miss the next issue.
In the 1990s, document management systems revolutionized law practice. Not only could you collaborate on documents more efficiently, but you could also save time on new documents by leveraging your firm's body of work. Today's faster-paced world demands more sophisticated tools than these brute force searches through your archives. Time for another revolution.
Lexis Search Advantage … in One Sentence
Recently updated, Lexis Search Advantage is an enterprise search add-on that enhances your firm's work product with search, legal research, and drafting tools.
The Killer Feature
Lexis Search Advantage is powered by a combination of proprietary LexisNexis technology and IBM's Watson Explorer, a search platform capable of interpreting large data sets such as your firm's documents. As a result, Lexis Search Advantage can identify specific elements in the documents it searches.
For example, suppose you want to search for a legal issue in a litigation matter. You can use either a natural language search or traditional terms and connectors. And suppose your search results contain several briefs from your firm's archives. Below each brief, you'll find a Shepard's scorecard alerting you to potential problems with one or more citations in the document. These real-time Shepard's signals are always up-to-date thanks to integration with Lexis Advance.
When you open a brief, you'll find a living document. A panel along the left side lists all citations, judges, lawyers, experts, and companies within the document. The same real-time Shepard's signals are here too. Click on a citation to read that case. You can also find other documents created by your firm that cite the same case.
Click on the name of a judge, expert, or lawyer, and thanks to the new integration with LexisNexis Litigation Profile Suite you can learn more about that person and their experience. For example, charts show you how a judge has ruled on motions, the types of cases that comprise their docket, etc.
Other Notable Features
Lexis Search Advantage offers similar tools for transactional lawyers. You can search generally for transactional documents or run special searches for a Clause Title or Defined Term. The contextual snippets in the search results help you zero in on model documents. Within a document, the panel on the left side lists all sections, clause titles, and defined terms, enabling you to quickly navigate lengthy documents. You can copy a clause or defined term to your clipboard to use in the document you're drafting.
Searches often require refinement. Lexis Search Advantage enables you to refine searches. Refinements from your own document management system include authors, clients, date range, document type, and user tags. Lexis Search Advantage provides additional legal-centric refinements such as citations, jurisdictions, governing law, experts, judges, etc. When you perfect a search, you can save it in a public or private folder.
Because your colleagues don't always assign document types consistently, you can use Lexis Search Advantage's algorithm to automatically assign the document type in accordance with your firm's standard nomenclature.
"Lexis Search Advantage is a great example of the LexisNexis strategy of providing lawyers with technologies that help them work more efficiently," LexisNexis North American Research Solutions managing director Sean Fitzpatrick told me.
What Else Should You Know?
Lexis Search Advantage scales to accommodate any size document collection. One large law firm uses it with upwards of 40 million of its documents. Instead of using Watson Explorer as the search engine, you can alternatively use OpenText (formerly Recommind) or SharePoint. Learn more about Lexis Search Advantage.
How to Receive TL NewsWire
So many products, so little time. In each issue of TL NewsWire, you'll learn about five new products for the legal profession. Pressed for time? The newsletter's innovative articles enable lawyers and law office administrators to quickly understand the function of a product, and zero in on its most important features. The TL NewsWire newsletter is free so don't miss the next issue. Please subscribe now.
