It’s hard for me to believe that I wrote my first Dewey B Strategic  post on February 17, 2011.  My intended goal was to highlight the importance of librarians and knowledge managers as strategic assets in their organizations and to be an observer and possibly influencer in the legal publishing and legal tech marketplace. It has been a fantastically interesting ride. I have had a front row seat observing the development of dramatic new technologies. In 2011 the ground was being prepared for  the growth of AI, analytics, powerful workflow tools and the invention of new classes of research tools…

Respond to the  2020-21 What’s Hot and What’s Not Survey here. Although the world was shut down by the pandemic, our friends in legal tech continued their pursuit of innovation and market share.  Most of us had a sense of whiplash and disbelief when the world came to a virtual halt in March 2020. Law librarians who had built digital libraries over the years offered their attorneys a fairly seamless transition to their work from home desktop. Within weeks most legal publishers had developed a special COVID offering. These ranged from free alerts, to primary sources and workflow toolkits.…

HBR Consulting  just released the 2020 Benchmarking + Legal Information Services Survey (BLISS). The innovative and interactive delivery format is at least as interesting as the content. The survey focused on the core metrics such as staffing, budgets, and resources but also covered hot topics such as innovation and COVID-19 impact. The survey was undertaken during June and July 2020, three months after most law firms were two months into mandatory work from home. That enabled the  survey designers to capture some insights into how law firms were adapting legal research and knowledge services in response to the pandemic.…

Today Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S. is announcing a unique collaboration with Granville Knowledge Management (Granville KM) to integrate Merger Thresholds Monitor with Kluwer Competition Law. The platform offers a unique resource for antitrust and competition lawyers needing access to worldwide merger control thresholds. This is Wolters Kluwer’s latest enhancement to Kluwer Competition Law, the leading resource for EU, national and international competition law. The partnership with Granville KM,  provides a seamless integration of Granville KM content into the Wolters Kluwer  platform. According to Martin English, Sales & Marketing Director at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US, International…

The American Association of Law Libraries is preparing to publish their second State of the Profession Survey. The AALL State of the Profession Report “provides an overview of the law library and legal information landscape.” The goal of the survey is to examine the contributions of legal information professionals across, academic, private firm and governmental organizations. The survey will examine the both challenges and opportunities facing librarians and knowledge managers. The final report will be designed for benchmarking, advocacy, organizational planning and personal development of members. The first survey was published in 2019. The survey for second edition of the AALL …

Today Bloomberg Law is launching enhancements to their Draft Analyzer tool which streamlines the  M&A drafting process. The Draft Analyzer was launched in 2015  as a “what’s market” tool which I reviewed in an earlier post.  The Draft Analyzer streamlines transactional workflow by leveraging a proprietary algorithm to benchmark a clause  to similar provisions from agreements filed as exhibits in the SEC’s EDGAR database. Like the Bloomberg Law Brief Analyzer the Draft Analyzer offers a easy “drop and drag” technology which allows a lawyer to drop a document into the analyzer engine.  “The new enhancements for merger agreements include…

Today LexisNexis is announcing the launch of Lexis+ Litigation Analytics. Litigation Analytics does two things. It integrates analytics into the research and practical guidance  workflow.  Lexis+  now offers “enhanced analytics” from Lex Machina as well as state level analytics derived from CourtLink for the states that Lex Machina does not currently cover. Karl Harris, C.E.O. of Lex Machina a offered me a demonstration of Lexis + Litigation Analytics.. Harris placed analytics within the context of the new workflow which was introduced with Lexis+.  Lexis+ includes a persistent navigation bar which today adds litigation analytics to the 3 original  pillars of, …

 Today  Bloomberg Law  is  announcing  a new access to justice initiative by offering 90 days of complimentary access to the Bloomberg Law platform though the Paladin platform which helps lawyers identify pro bono opportunities. This is the second access to justice initiative Bloomberg Law has announced since the start of 2021. Last week Bloomberg I  covered the announcement of their new partnership with the Legal Services Corporation to provide free access to Bloomberg Law. Kudos to Bloomberg and Paladin. Equal access to justice depends on equal access to  powerful tools  such as Bloomberg Law which streamline the  research process and…

This week Thomson Reuters Institute and Georgetown Law Center on Ethics and the Legal Profession released their 2021 Report on the State of the Legal Market. It is always an interesting read but this year offered  a petri dish for the transformation of law firms in real time.  2020 was a perfect storm of pandemic, financial uncertainty, social change and political stress. The Report adopts the theme of Malcolm Gladwell‘s meme-able book The Tipping Point. Contrary to the popular assumption that social change happens slowly and steadily over a period of time Gladwell argues with a metaphor that is equally…

Legal publishers Casemaker and Fastcase are announcing a merger of their two companies. According to the press release ” The two companies will combine their teams and technologies to innovate research, analytics, and workflow offerings that empower lawyers with powerful digital solutions for their clients.” I spoke with Ed Walters CEO of Fastcase yesterday. He stated that the merged Fastcase and Casemaker have the largest lawyer subscriber base of any legal research system. Since Fastcase and Casemaker together are available to every bar association in the United States – that means that virtually every lawyer in the US has access…

OK I am going to say it yet again. Legal news is Hot!. It is only the first week of January and I am announcing the third important change in the Legal News market in three days. On Sunday ALM announced that they were continuing their licensing agreement with Lexis on a non-exclusive basis. Today American Lawyer Media (ALM) and Bloomberg Law are announcing a new licensing agreement. Bloomberg Law customers will  get access to ALM legal news and information, including more than 3,000 new pieces of original news reporting each month, archived news content, and data from ALM Experts…