Elon Musk (Photo by Diego Donamaria/Getty Images for SXSW)
In contracts litigation, access to legal analytics can make or break your case. Armed with analytics provided by Lex Machina’s latest litigation module, not only will you be able to learn important details about case timing, resolutions, findings, damages, and remedies, but you’ll also be able to discover all manner of critical information about those involved with your case, from opposing counsel to judges.
Let’s use an entertaining real-world example to delve into what Lex Machina is capable of. Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has been embroiled as a defendant in securities and contracts-related litigation for years. How have these lawsuits been going for him?
Using the intelligence that is part and parcel of Lex Machina, we can see that 57.1 percent of those cases were dismissed in less than 250 days, and that the following top law firms represented the defendants (i.e., Musk and Tesla) in those cases:
- Ross Aronstam & Moritz;
- Greenberg Traurig;
- Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati;
- Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell; and
- DLA Piper.
Luckily for these law firms, Lex Machina can help their litigators figure out the likely strategy of opposing counsel. They can use the platform to see what types of cases their opponent has handled and how they have fared in those cases, then click through to the docket and look at the actual pleadings filed by opposing counsel, to see the exact claims they raise and arguments they make.
In fact, litigators at leading law firms can even see exactly how many times a well-known Biglaw firm’s name has been butchered in various filings thanks to typos and dictation errors. Check out all the interesting ways “Greenberg Traurig” was listed after Lex Machina digested — and managed to make sense of — thousands upon thousands of pages of filings (major bonus points if you can figure out the misspelling we added here just for fun):
- GREENBERG TRAuRIG
- Greegberg Traurig
- REENBERG TRAURIG
- Greenberg Traur1g
- GREENBERG TRAGIC
- CREENBERG TRAURIG
- Greenberg Traurig, Esq.
- GREENBERG IRAURIG
- GREENBERG RAURIG
- GREENBERG SRAURIG
Your clients may not be as influential as Elon Musk (and hopefully they aren’t self-destructing on Twitter), but their contracts-related claims are just as important to them. Why not leverage the unprecedented strategic insight of Lex Machina to make sure they come out on top? High-stakes litigation demands the competitive edge that only the best legal analytics can provide.