Lex[is] Machina

In November, Lex Machina, the Bay Area legal analytics business started at Stanford, was acquired by Lexis. The press release stated their services would be merged, "integrating analytic capabilities into existing LexisNexis solutions, such as Lexis Advance." Lex Machina tends to focus on IP cases and law , pulling most of its data from PACER, the International Trade Commission’s Electronic Document Information System, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It will now have access to a greater range of court filings through the Lexis Courtlink system. While many business and firms have invested in Lex Machina, it does not come cheap - a single user license is priced at $10,000 per year. Look for Lex Machina's services to become part of the the standard range of services provided by Lexis in the standard package purchased by law firms.

Lex Machina uses the Cloud Software as a Service delivery model. Among its many tools is Motion Kickstarter, which allows user to review a particular District Court judge's decisions on different motion types in particular case types. It would be easy to see how Lexis would roll this feature into Courtlink or Lexis Advance. This is one of its Custom Insight Apps along with a ECA tool that shows against who and where plaintiffs have filed suits and the litigation record of the plaintiff's firm, and also a Patent Portfolio Evaluator that shows the complete litigation history of a patent. These Lex Machina services might be incorporated into Lexis more easily than its main Legal Analytics Platform or the professional services that its 'legal data scientists' provide in judge, party, and firm profiles, and industry studies.