New Judicial Analytics Platform Launches With $2M Funding

In a column here last December, I wrote about the growing market of legal technology tools devoted to litigation analytics, describing it as tech that can turn the tables in litigation. Making its formal launch today is a new entrant to that market, Trellis Research, a judicial analytics platform that claims to have the most-comprehensive database of California court records and that is launching with $2 million in seed funding.

Trellis describes itself as a “decision engine” for attorneys, enabling them to make strategic decisions about litigation matters backed by hard-and-fast data. It says it has over 5.3 million California superior court documents and dockets covering 39 of the state’s 58 counties, including all the major courts. It plans to add New York courts later this year and then expand to states such as Texas, Florida, Delaware, and Illinois.

In addition to enabling attorneys to search superior court records, Trellis provides judicial strategy reports that analyze a judge’s past rulings and report on how the judge has ruled on specific types of motions, how the judge compares to other judges, and the arguments a judge finds persuasive. Reports link to a judge’s full-text rulings.

Trellis was founded by Nicole Clark, a lawyer who initially began collecting data on judges for her own use while a litigation associate in Los Angeles. “Every time someone would go before a new judge, an email would go around the firm asking for information on the judge,” Clark told me.

As she began to collect this data and see how it helped in her own motion practice, she realized other lawyers could also benefit.

“I had a ridiculously successful motion practice during that time,” Clark said. “It became obvious what a massive competitive advantage it is to have access to this data. It’s like having the answers to the test before you go in.”

Clark applied to the Techstars LA accelerator program, which accepted Trellis as one of 10 startups in its 2018 program.

With today’s formal launch, Trellis announced that it has received $2 million in seed funding. Investors in the round include Okapi Venture Capital, Craft Ventures and Sequoia Scout, Revel Ventures, and Intrepid Ventures. Angel investors who participated include Earthlink founder and CEO Sky Dayton, former Federal Communications Commissioner Julius Genachowski, Clutter founder Brian Thomas, and Wayne Chang, who sold Crashlytics to Google.

I asked Clark about how Trellis compares to Gavelytics, another site that mines California dockets and provides analytics on judges. Trellis covers more counties than Gavelytics, she said, and provides full-text search of judicial rulings and records, which she says Gavelytics does not.

Gavelytics, however, does in fact provide full-text search of rulings. I checked that by email with Gavelytics founder Rick Merrill, who said Gavelytics makes its rulings fully searchable.

You can try Trellis free for seven days, after which the subscription price is $99 a month. If that sounds like a lot, Clark believes it is well worth it for the advantage it offers.

“If opposing counsel has it and you don’t, then you’re at a serious disadvantage,” Clark said.

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Robert Ambrogi is a Massachusetts lawyer and journalist who has been covering legal technology and the web for more than 20 years, primarily through his blog LawSites.com. Former editor-in-chief of several legal newspapers, he is a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and an inaugural Fastcase 50 honoree. He can be reached by email at ambrogi@gmail.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@BobAmbrogi).