Trellis' Nicole Clark on State Trial Court Docket Analytics
Apr 27, 2022
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Nicole Clark, CEO and co-founder of Trellis, shares her journey to access and analyze state trial court dockets. Trellis aims to add a county court a day and use AI to analyze the data. The value of trial court data extends beyond the legal field. Trellis provides complimentary access to its state trial court research & analytics platform. The podcast discusses advancements in search technology, organizing state trial court docket analytics, AI and machine learning in Trellis, analyzing judge tendencies and case analytics, and using court docket analytics for business development.
Trellis aims to make state court trial dockets easily searchable and provide valuable analytics through a single interface, assisting litigation practice areas in making informed decisions.
Trellis employs machine learning and advanced search technology to save significant time for lawyers by conducting searches using full sentences and retrieving conceptually similar cases.
Deep dives
Trellis: Revolutionizing Access to State Court Trial Dockets
Trellis, a legal tech company, aims to make state court trial dockets easily searchable through a single interface and provide valuable analytics. By gathering fragmented data from thousands of individual county courts, Trellis offers insights on judge analytics, settlement figures, and individual attorney performance. Its analytics helps litigation practice areas such as employment, product liability, and class actions make informed decisions about judge preferences, opposing counsel strategies, and case evaluation. Trellis also assists in business development by providing valuable data on potential clients' legal history and granting access to a vast brief bank that spans state trial courts.
The Power of Artificial Intelligence in Legal Research
Trellis employs machine learning as part of its artificial intelligence capabilities. Initially, the company had to structure fragmented and messy data from various sources before applying machine learning algorithms. Their advancements in search technology enable neural net-powered parallel searches, allowing attorneys to conduct searches using full sentences instead of just keywords. The platform retrieves sentences within cases that are conceptually similar, even if the exact words are not present. This advanced search capability saves significant time for lawyers and assists in constructing accurate and effective searches.
Future of State Court Analytics: Adoption and Consolidation
Trellis predicts a significant change in the legal tech marketplace and the widespread adoption of data-driven legal research. The company envisions its research techniques becoming industry-standard practice, empowering attorneys to analyze opposing counsel and judges systematically. Trellis also foresees a trend of consolidation among legal tech companies, prioritizing the delivery of data through single-source platforms and APIs to simplify access and improve usability. The integration of data from various legal platforms will enhance efficiency and streamline workflows for attorneys and researchers.
Expanding Coverage and Overcoming Challenges
With its focus on digitized state trial courts, Trellis currently covers 16 states and continues to rapidly expand its data acquisition efforts. They prioritize coverage based on litigation volume, value, and population size. Despite challenges posed by legacy technology and non-digitized courts, Trellis aims to provide comprehensive coverage by onboarding one new county per day. Some of the toughest states to obtain data from include Illinois, where legacy systems and non-digitized court records present obstacles. However, the company overcomes these hurdles by structuring data and mapping it to their central structure, ensuring a clean and searchable statewide database.
When it comes to dockets, the holy grail for most of us has always been state trial court dockets. Nicole Clark, CEO and co-founder of Trellis also felt that way when she was practicing, and decided that she would find a way to access and obtain that treasure trove of data that was always just out of reach. Nicole sits down with us this week to tell us the story behind her mission to seek out local court information, clean up the data, and create a method of analyzing that data. As anyone who has ever worked with trial court dockets, you understand how difficult a task this really is.
Nicole says that Trellis is on a mission to add a county court a day and to find additional ways that the information can be sliced, diced, and analyzed with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) processes like natural language processing (NLP) and through upcoming API access. She also walks us through some of the unique ways her customers use the data, and that the value of trial court data isn't just limited to the legal field. The once elusive state court data is now becoming more and more available through platforms like Trellis, so the opportunities for legal researchers to take advantage of this wealth of information is expanding, literally by the day.
Listener Perk: Trellis is providing Geek In Review podcast listeners with complimentary 14-day access to its state trial court research & analytics platform! Gain insights and intelligence on judges, verdicts, opposing counsel, motions, rulings, dockets and other legal issues. Click here to try Trellis for free today.
LegalWeek Crystal Ball Question
This week we ask Casetext'sRobert Armbruster to look into his crystal ball and tell us what he sees in the next few years when it comes to our expectations on how search tools like Casetext will evolve.