Give Your Legal Brief a Competitive Advantage

[Bloomberg Law’s Brief Analyzer tool can help you speed up the process without compromising on deep, quality research you can trust. Request Demo.]

Most litigators are familiar with this scenario: It’s just a few minutes before 5 pm on a Friday when your email alert dings, notifying you of the delivery of your opponent’s brief in one of your biggest cases. Now you’re spending your entire weekend painstakingly researching every argument and cited case, combing for any misstep or opening you can use in your rebuttal.

Even if that experience hasn’t occurred in real life yet, it’s a thing of nightmares for litigation associates at all levels. What you need is a way to speed up the process without compromising on deep, quality research you can trust.

While artificial intelligence-driven technologies exist to accelerate legal research, not all of them integrate seamlessly into your workflow and include side-by-side comparisons of briefs and links to relevant, expert intelligence and related content, so you spend less time on analysis and more time on crafting a winning strategy.

A Complete Workflow Solution

Bloomberg Law’s Brief Analyzer dissects briefs, finds related content, and accelerates legal research through an innovative, uncompromising focus on transparency at every stage.

Fully integrated and interactive, the tool provides a complete workflow solution. From the time of upload, through cite checks and suggested content results, the tool leaves the guesswork behind. Simply upload or drag, drop and select “Analyze This Brief,” and in minutes Brief Analyzer will:

• display the brief and analysis in a side-by-side comparison;
• suggest relevant content not cited in the brief, providing detailed reasons for the suggestions;
• enhance your research by integrating Bloomberg Law’s practice tools such as BCite, Points of Law, and Docket Key into the brief analysis; and
• link to additional resources on the platform, including similar briefs and Practical Guidance.

“This tool will help lawyers better serve their clients and the courts by allowing them to more fully, accurately, and efficiently analyze and address the relevant law,” wrote Stephanie Boxell, senior associate at Faegre Baker Daniels,‏ in a review of the product after a beta usage period.

Transparency by Design

As you might expect, Brief Analyzer pulls all the citations in a brief – but it is much more than that.

“We designed Brief Analyzer to be more than a tool to check the authority cited in a brief,” said David Kleiman, product development manager at Bloomberg Law. “It allows attorneys to interact with the brief text and dive into the analysis on an argument-by-argument basis.”

For example, it is no secret that lawyers are strategic about the legal support and language they choose to quote to support an argument. Brief Analyzer provides an easy comparison of original and quoted language in side-by-side panels.

“And Brief Analyzer doesn’t just recommend opinions that the attorney should look at for a given argument – it explains why the tool is making those suggestions, giving users the information they need to decide whether to review the opinion or not,” Kleiman said.

In all instances, the rationale for recommendations is highlighted. All citations are clearly listed – and hyperlinked for easy review – on the main interface screen.

“I like how it not only suggests cases that may be relevant, but provides short explanations as to why these cases may be relevant,” wrote Kara Cooper, litigation associate at Winston & Strawn, who also participated in the beta test. “I’ve never seen anything like it, and I think it’s extremely helpful for legal research.”

This transparency is also critical in ensuring that attorneys understand how the tool is generating results. “Lawyers are ethically obligated to understand the technology they are using to serve their clients, and discussions of using artificial intelligence often come with uneasiness about a ‘black box,’” said Mindy Rattan, litigation team lead for analysis at Bloomberg Law. “Transparency by design is critical to assuage these concerns.”

Shorten the Research Cycle

Persuasive legal writing requires more than one case or statute citation to clinch a legal win. Yet all it takes is one incorrect reference for an entire legal argument to unravel. For this reason, legal research continues to occupy significant time and resources across law firms.

Now more than ever, new approaches to brief analysis are essential, as law firm associates and partners alike continue to spend countless hours on legal research and brief writing. Specifically, 75% of litigators surveyed by Bloomberg Law said reviewing and analyzing the opposing party’s motions/briefs is one of their most time-consuming tasks.