To be successful in today’s competitive legal environment, lawyers need to make faster, more informed decisions, based on data that is incorporated into their natural workflow. But the existence of large volumes of quality data alone isn’t a solution for today’s lawyer – quickly turning that data into actionable insight is.

As a company, we are always looking to the future, anticipating the needs of our customers, advancements in technology, and changes in the legal landscape. Our vision for the future is focused on the data-driven lawyer.

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For us, that means a legal professional able to draw insights from data and information not previously available. But to do this requires new ways of thinking and a shift in how we think about data, how legal professionals search for data and ultimately how they consume it.  And analytics is the engine that powers a new kind of data-driven practice.

Against that backdrop, last week we acquired Ravel Law, a legal research, analytics and visualization platform that empowers users to contextualize and interpret vast amounts of information to uncover valuable insights. The acquisition will expand the LexisNexis Legal Analytics suite of products through full integration of Ravel Law’s judicial analytics, data visualization technology and unique case law PDF content from the Harvard Law Library into Lexis Litigation Profile Suite and Lexis Advance.

Ravel Law’s technology will also enhance the current Legal Analytics suite of solutions offered by LexisNexis, including LexisNexis MedMal Navigator, LexisNexis Verdict & Settlement Analyzer, Intelligize and Lex Machina.

Our goal in acquiring Ravel Law is to lead the development of the field of legal analytics – through our technology, our content and our people.

For litigators and corporate counsel, this expansive suite of analytics tools will provide unprecedented insight into judges, jurisdictions, motion practice and parties to cases. For example, Lex Machina provides legal analytics around the behavior of judges, law firms, lawyers and parties, enabling them to craft successful trial strategies, win cases and close business. Lexis Litigation Profile Suite, enhanced by Ravel Law technology, will complement this offering by providing insight into arguments that are likely to be persuasive to a judge. When combined with the behavior analysis from Lex Machina, litigators have the ability to build judge-specific arguments for use in court.

That’s a big step forward for the legal information industry and precisely why LexisNexis continues to aggressively invest in, build and integrate innovative capabilities into our ever-expanding portfolio of legal analytics solutions.

We have only scratched the surface of what these emerging technologies can achieve. At LexisNexis, we have a vision for the practice of law that extends far into the future and are working to make it a reality.

Jeff Pfeifer is vice president of product management at LexisNexis