The Key To Crafting A Winning Argument? Context.

When it comes to litigation, you want to have every tool possible in your arsenal to help you prepare, present, and argue the strongest case for your client. Unfortunately, though, as diligent as you may be in your preparation, you have no control over the judge assigned to your case. Your judge can have a major impact on both how you approach a case and your likelihood of success.

The attempt to tailor case strategies or arguments to particular judges has long been an uphill battle for litigators, who have had to rely solely on anecdotes from colleagues or haphazard web and database searches to try to piece together incomplete intel on judicial behavior and temperaments. Litigators have often tried to get inside judges’ heads, and have just as often failed.

Until now. Meet Context, a powerful new AI-powered solution from LexisNexis that’s changing the way litigators craft arguments and prepare cases. Part of the Lexis Analytics™ suite of products, Context offers unrivaled levels of insight on judges and expert witnesses that put you in a better position to win than was ever before possible.

The Power of Analytics

Context works its magic by using legal language analytics to pinpoint the specific language your judge will find most persuasive and assess how expert testimony will stand up in front of your judge. In creating Context, LexisNexis has combined Ravel Law’s sophisticated language-based machine learning with the massive amount of case law collected on Lexis Advance® to create meaningful insights that actually help litigators win cases. With Context, you’re empowered to make the most persuasive argument you can possibly make.

Context actually consists of two powerful tools, integrated directly into Lexis Advance:

The beauty of Context being part of the LexisNexis family is that you get the depth of content that the company has built over years and years in the industry, without having to leave the platforms you already know or download new products.

Speak Your Judge’s Language

While you may never be able to actually get inside your judge’s head, Context offers the next best thing. The product’s advanced algorithms allow you to uncover patterns in the language individual judges use and the cases they most frequently cite when ruling. With that information in your arsenal, you can craft the most compelling argument possible for your particular judge, because you can rely on language that you already know will be considered persuasive.

Context starts by giving you the basics on your judge — background, appointment information, experience, and credentials. It even links to the court website so you can access the judge’s rules.

From there, Context unleashes a mountain of information that you could never hope to find anywhere else. You can see not just how many motions your judge typically hears, but drill down on grant vs. deny rates, broken down by a staggering 100 different types of federal and state motions.

How does your judge typically rule on summary judgment motions? Context will tell you. You can even link directly to the decisions in those cases. Just filter by motion type and the information you need is at your fingertips. This kind of insight can be instrumental in deciding whether or not to dedicate valuable time to preparing certain types of motions.

If you do decide to pursue a motion, that’s when Context can really help make or break your case. While knowing how your judge tends to rule is crucial information, Context offers even more. Using language-based AI, Context will tell you the actual language your judge most often relies on in ruling a certain way.

That’s right — you can now know the exact language that your judge finds most persuasive and include that language directly in your brief. Short of reading every motion to dismiss ruling ever issued by a judge, there was never a way to know exactly which cases or language were best to cite in a given case. With Context, it couldn’t be easier to find that information.

Imagine you could hand your judge a summary judgment brief with the exact quotes and citations she uses in nearly every summary judgment ruling. Now you can. Once that’s possible, all other attempts to craft a persuasive argument feel like shots in the dark.

The more you can reason and speak in a manner that resonates with your judge, the more likely you are to succeed. Context makes that possible.

Pick the Best Expert

Context takes the same advanced algorithms it uses to create judge analytics and turns them on expert witnesses. Choosing the right expert can feel like a guessing game. With Context, though, you get insight into the likelihood of your potential experts being admitted or excluded on particular issues.

Context houses an impressive database of 400,000 experts. For each, you can see basic background information and CVs (often several), as well as a more detailed breakdown of how often they’re hired by the plaintiff or the defendant, the areas of expertise in which they’ve testified, how often they’ve been challenged, and what the outcomes of those challenges were.

Expert witnesses are critical to influencing the thinking of judges on highly specialized aspects of your case. You don’t want to waste the opportunity on an expert who has never appeared in court or who frequently has their testimony excluded. The analytics offered by Context can also be instrumental in impeaching or challenging your opponent’s experts — if you can show your judge just how often similar testimony has been excluded, you’re well on your way to having your version of the case be the one that wins.

Litigators are usually forced to take a one-size-fits-all approach to litigation, and it shouldn’t be that way. With Context, it no longer has to be. Context gives you confidence that you’re citing the right language to the right judge and picking the right expert in every case.

Once you’ve prepared a case with judge and expert analytics on your side, you’ll never go back to the old way of doing things. Context is the game changer that will tip the scales in your favor.