They say that time is money, and if that’s the case then you may be spending too much of it on legal research and writing. Conducting any research is very time consuming in general, but in law the pressure of coming up with quick and accurate findings can be very strenuous. Looking for the right keywords, arguments or circumstances in the mountain of case law that exists is one of the challenges involved in the research process, the other is ensuring that you are citing and referencing these sources correctly. Luckily there are software resources available today that help alleviate the time setbacks involved in legal research and writing as well as other administrative obligations involved in the creation of legal documents and court forms. We will highlight some of them within this blog, but please feel free to check out our marketplace to gain a more extensive understanding of what legal software is currently on the market and how they compare to one another.
Legal Research
There are many legal software services available on the market that address a number of pain points within the legal profession, but some that are still relatively uncommon are legal research and writing tools. This blog will explore some of the software that is currently available, aside from the mainstream tools you might already know about like Westlaw and LexisNexis, to give you a better understanding of who they are, what they do and how they do it.
Who: Alexsei
What: Alexsei is a cloud-based legal research memo automation software.
How: You can think of Alexsei as the legal version of Googling, except it only shows you the best result instead of pages upon pages of results and combines said result into a nicely worded article, citing all their sources. Ask it a legal question in plain language, such as “In what jurisdiction are supervised parents justified?” and after giving it the facts of the case, it will generate a legal research memo within 12-24 hours similarly to how an associate would. The memo will include a 3-6 paragraph answer to the question with links to the authorities in CanLii, and the important passages from the relevant cases. Alexsei uses recent cases, weighted to your jurisdiction.
Who: Jurisage
What: New Canadian legal research tool.
How: Free tool that is downloadable as a browser extension. Quickly informs your research process by generating case breakdowns of FILAC (facts, issue, law, analysis, conclusion) wherever you see citations. Enhances legal literacy by bridging the gap between legal questions and answers. In other words, it makes it easier and quicker for an average person to find the information they are looking for in long and complex case law.
“Legal problem solving is complex, time-consuming, and expensive. At Jurisage, our mission is to elevate access to justice by building powerful AI products that bridge the gap between legal questions and answers. Our first product, MyJr, is the first-of-its-kind browser extension that provides relevant information and insights right at your fingertips. By generating case insights wherever you see citations, MyJr takes care of the tedious analysis for you so that you can get back to solving legal problems more efficiently.” - Michelle Slipanchuk, from Jurisage
Who: Rangefindr
What: Canadian criminal sentencing research tool.
How: helps lawyers and judges quickly research the sentencing outcome that your client will be awarded through an extensively organized and tagged database of criminal sentences. Their software finds answers to sentencing range questions in minutes instead of hours. A filtering system will allow you to search through relevant criminal cases, view summaries of the sentences imposed and review each case further.
Legal Writing
Who: CiteRight
What: Cites cases, generates a live book of authorities, and manages advanced document assembly.
How: The cloud-based software allows you to share and collaborate on legal research, documents and authority collections with the rest of your team. CiteRight’s integration with MicrosoftWord allows you to save cases from your browser (by clicking the CiteRight integration on your browser) subsequently transferring all of your cases onto MicrosoftWord to ensure you have access to all of the relevant case law without having to switch between your document and your browser. It allows you to highlight and copy paragraphs from the case inserting them directly into your document - the software will automatically keep track of the relevant citation and even paragraph you have pulled the information from to ensure it has been cited properly.
Who: Casedo
What: Litigation software specializing in organizing, reviewing, tagging e-bundles.
How: The cloud-based software offers a step-by-step process to import, review, paginate and present your case file as a quick and easily accessible e-bundles. This legal research software allows you to read, highlight, annotate, create links and analyze multiple documents on one platform to help cut down time, whilst maintaining the human analysis element that makes legal professionals experts in their field.
Comparing on the Marketplace
It sure would be nice if all law firms could afford to hire an in-house ‘legal operations’ person to spend all day looking into solutions like these and how to train all your staff on them. Oh the luxury. We know small firms have to do the same. You can use Lumose Marketplace as your in-house legal operations person, for free. It is a centralized hub of suppliers for law firms, curated and reviewed based on the needs and budget of small law firms. It comes with thirty(30) minutes free 1-on-1 legal tech advice. We won’t pick your solution for you, but we can point you in the right direction and dramatically reduce the legal-tech learning curve you will tackle.
We list suppliers such as legal software for court form automation to case management, as well as other types of suppliers like tools and people to outsource your social media and marketing tasks to affordably, court-runners, help with recruiting paralegals, and legal accountants. For more information, visit our website.
This blog post highlighted tools that serve more general needs, for resources specific to other areas of law, such as family law matters and court form automation, check out ‘Tools Every Family Law Attorney and Paralegal Should Know About When Filing for Divorce Online’ and for any other queries, please visit our Marketplace to learn more.
