Early Case Assessments for Corporate Legal Departments: Start Small and Build Your Barometer – Jeff Cox Writes in the ILTA Blog
on Topics: News
Generative AI has changed the conversation on what is possible in the legal industry and it has paved the way for legal professionals to reconsider previously lofty ideas, such as developing early case assessment barometers to predict patterns, improve litigation strategy, and reach better outcomes.
UniCourt is thrilled to share the most recent article from our Director of Content, Jeff Cox, that was published in the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) blog: Early Case Assessments for Corporate Legal Departments: Start Small and Build Your Barometer.
In this article, Jeff provides a practical look at how legal professionals can develop their own early case assessment tools through using case complaint data, settlement data, and external data from vendors. By starting small, keeping it simple, and layering in complexity over time, legal professionals can build early case assessments barometers to help resolve litigation more effectively and swiftly, while setting themselves up for future successes.
Here below is an excerpt from Jeff’s article:
Over the last year, we’ve seen considerable advances in the way the legal industry thinks about and approaches technology with the barrage of new and exciting developments brought forth by the advent of Generative AI. This seismic shift has opened the door for corporate legal departments to more seriously consider and implement once daunting, bleeding-edge ideas, such as building early case assessment barometers to predict and achieve better litigation outcomes.
In this article, we’ll cover how you can build your own early case assessment barometer and focus on how and why you should leverage data around case complaints, dockets, settlements, and external information to build strategies that resolve litigation more efficiently and quickly.
Uncovering Intelligence from Case Complaints and Docket Data
Before getting too excited and diving headfirst into churning through case complaints and docket data to gather intelligence on your company’s litigation, you first need to carefully and intentionally carve out the scope of what exactly your early case assessment barometer will be measuring. Three core parameters to consider when determining your initial scope are the types of cases you’re including, the jurisdictions where they occur, and the judges overseeing those cases.
1. Case Types
Limit your scope to a single type of case that has a significant value to and/or volume for your legal department. But don’t just go with your gut here. Look at your own internal case counts and any data analytics you have on the legal spend connected to the different types of litigation your legal team has handled over the past 3-5 years. This is a crucial step and will help you later down the road with showing ROI for these efforts to other stakeholders within your legal department and your business counterparts.
2. Jurisdictions
Focus your scope to a specific jurisdiction and be as narrow as possible. The vast majority of trial court litigation takes place at the state level, and different states, different counties within the same state, and even different courts within the same county may operate with their own local rules and idiosyncrasies. To build out an accurate early case assessment barometer that can give you the trustworthy intelligence you need to resolve cases more efficiently and quickly, limit your jurisdictional variables as much as possible.
3. Judges
Depending on the volume of litigation your legal department handles for particular case types and jurisdictions, you may also want to consider limiting your initial scope to a specific judge or handful of judges overseeing the vast majority of your caseload. This will give you even more precise forecasting from your barometer and could uncover critical, judge-specific patterns that have significant bearing on how you approach your overall litigation strategy.
Once you’ve adequately defined your scope, then think about the types of questions you want to answer that are important to your legal department. Here are some of the most common questions you can start with:
- How long do these cases take to reach an outcome?
- How often are these cases resolved with a summary judgment motion or motion to dismiss? How often do they settle?
- Are there specific outside counsel who perform better or worse on these cases?
- Is there particular opposing counsel who you fare better or worse against in court?
- Are there certain arguments that tend to achieve better outcomes with specific judges?
There are numerous other questions that you can ask and answer by looking at your case complaints and docket data. However, take it one bite at a time. Identify the most salient questions you need to answer to uncover helpful litigation intelligence and start there. Trying to boil the ocean is the most common reason these efforts have historically failed.
You can read the full article here on ILTA’s blog.
Develop Winning Litigation Strategies with the UniCourt Enterprise API
The UniCourt Enterprise API provides a single source of truth for state and federal litigation data, enabling legal professionals to enrich their data warehouses with in-depth information from dockets and documents, including normalized parties, attorneys, law firms, and judges.
UniCourt’s easy to integrate API, comprehensive coverage, and open licensing terms are purpose built to help legal professionals innovate and leverage the data they need.
Speak with one of our API experts today to learn how you can use the UniCourt Enterprise API to build your own early case assessment tools.