Moneyball for Litigation? A Conversation with Premonition's Toby Unwin

Columnist Zach Abramowitz explores the concept of Moneyball for litigation.

Even if you’re not a baseball fan, there is a good chance you’ve heard of Moneyball.  The term originally referred to the book written by Michael Lewis about the Oakland A’s, but it’s taken on its own meaning, especially after Brad Pitt played the part of Billy Beane.  The simple takeaway from Moneyball is that (in my best business school voice) by focusing on certain metrics and not others, you can expose inefficiencies and get ahead of the market before the market corrects itself.
Is there a Moneyball for litigation? Several companies think so.  Last month, I had an opportunity to catch up with Owen Byrd from Lex Machina, a well established venture backed company in Silicon Valley that provides its customers with critical information about what happens in the courtroom.  They have even referred to themselves as “Moneyball law.”  But they’re not the only ones trying to provide lawyers with the metrics that matter.  Case in point: Premonition.  Premonition is building an artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and data mining to try to figure out which lawyers win the most before which judge.  Seems like valuable information, so I wanted to know more. Toby Unwin is the Chief Innovation Officer for Premonition and he joins me here on Above the Law to discuss.

Zach Abramowitz is a former Biglaw associate and currently CEO and co-founder of ReplyAll. You can follow Zach on Twitter (@zachabramowitz) or reach him by email at zach@replyall.me.

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