Daniel Lewis on Judge Analytics

This week we are happy to share a new interview with Daniel Lewis, CEO and Co-founder of Ravel Law on their new Judge Analytics system.

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1. Can you describe in a couple of sentences basically how the Judge Analytics system works?

Ravel’s Judge Analytics provides litigators with never-before-available information and analysis on all federal, state appellate, magistrate, and bankruptcy judges. Powered by natural language processing, machine learning, and data science, Judge Analytics enable lawyers to research judges in dramatically faster, more effective ways than conventional tools allow. For example, lawyers can instantly sort through an individual judge’s decisions to find those that deal only with certain types of motions or topics or have a particular outcome. At the same time, Ravel’s pattern-spotting technology identifies the language a judge has used in the past, as well as the other judges they find influential and the cases and courts they consider most important.

2. Do you know if lawyers or parties using Judge Analytics has resulted in civil or other cases not being filed in courts?  Similarly, settled?

We hear from clients all the time that Judge Analytics has given them a competitive edge in the courtroom. For example, an attorney told us that because of research unearthed by Judge Analytics, he convinced his team to move a case to a new venue as it would involve a more favorable judge.

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3. Have there been any other surprises?

One partner at a major firm reported that he discovered via Ravel that the judge he was in front of didn’t like sports analogies, so he made sure to avoid “moving the goal post” in front of her.

4. Do you know if you have any courts who are using your system?  If so, do you know generally what they might have used it for or if not, what they might be able to learn by using it?

Ravel is being used by clerks, prosecutors, public defenders, and professional staff at dozens and dozens of federal and state courts around the country, for the same reason as litigators everywhere use Ravel: it provides new intelligence about how judges and courts rule, and the key precedent in each jurisdiction, that can’t be found anywhere else.

5. What are your plans if you can share for the future of this powerful capability?  (API?)

We recently introduced Motion Analytics, which is a companion tool to Judge Analytics. This innovative feature provides intelligence about how judges and courts rule on different motion types, and lawyers are already exploiting new insights as they craft strategy and pitch clients. They can even answer questions that were previously unanswerable, such as how often a particular judge might grant a particular motion.

Thank you to Daniel and Ravel Law for their time to answer our questions.  For more, there is also a YouTube interview "Ravel Law: A Silicon Valley Approach to the Law Industry" posted by GROCO CPASand Advisors.