Technology

Why LexisNexis Acquired Ravel Law: A Conversation With Ravel CEO Daniel Lewis

What does the acquisition mean for lawyers, other legal start-ups and the industry as a whole?

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© 2013 Eric Millette, All Rights Reserved www.EricMillette.com

© 2013 Eric Millette, All Rights Reserved www.EricMillette.com

Last week, LexisNexis announced that it had acquired Ravel Law marking its second acquisition of a legal analytics start-up in as many years, the first being its acquisition of Lex Machina late in 2015. Ravel Law, which like many start-ups, was launched out of a Stanford dorm room, had, per Crunchbase previously raised over $15 million in funding to reimagine legal research. Like Lex Machina, Ravel focused on figuring out how big data and analytics could give litigators a winning edge. But where Lex Machina focused primarily on data that could show in-house counsel which lawyers were successful in front of specific judges, Ravel focused on showing litigators which strategies, precedents and arguments were influencing judges one way or the other.

When I spoke with Jeff Pfeifer, VP of Product Management at LexisNexis, earlier this year at Legalweek New York, he emphasized throughout our chat that the future was going to be in combining Lexis’ biggest asset — data — with cutting edge technology that would give lawyers the kind of visibility into their cases they never imagined. Now, management folks say a lot of things at conferences, but this acquisition certainly fits Jeff’s narrative. Starting today, I’m kicking off a conversation with Ravel’s CEO Daniel Lewis to see how much I can dig out of him about the acquisition (without getting him in any hot water) and what the acquisition means for lawyers, other legal start-ups and the industry as a whole. I’m not 100% sure if it’s his first full interview since the acquisition, but it’s definitely his first ReplyAll. Follow our conversation as it unfolds by clicking the button underneath the conversation.

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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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