In many ways, 2021 was an anomalous year that presented different challenges from 2020. Despite this, in the sphere of litigation analytics, legal professionals continued to incorporate Legal Analytics into their practice.
As 2022 begins, Legal Analytics continues to play an essential role in enhancing the practice and business of law. Looking back on 2021, we can see there were several key trends in the most popular ways Legal Analytics were used by legal professionals, which can be loosely grouped into three categories.
Client Service
One of the primary uses for Legal Analytics in 2021 continues to revolve around the common goal held by attorneys to provide the strongest service possible to their clients. As the number of clients who use Legal Analytics continues to increase, their attorneys need to ensure they’re incorporating Legal Analytics into their workflow whether they’re providing client advice or crafting litigation strategy. This is both because clients are increasingly expecting their attorneys to use Legal Analytics, and also because clients are able to run their own checks with their own access to Legal Analytics.
As the standard shifts to clients who increasingly use and expect their attorneys to use Legal Analytics, we can see attorneys responding to this new norm. In 2021, a significant number of attorneys reported using Legal Analytics to advise their clients and craft litigation strategies with their clients, often propelled by the expectations of the clients themselves.
Competitive Intelligence
Another predominant way attorneys employed Legal Analytics in 2021 was to leverage its advantages over their competitors, both in and out of the courtroom. Attorneys continued to recognize and utilize the advantage Legal Analytics can provide in crafting litigation strategy and winning business. To that end, in 2021, a substantial number of attorneys reported using Legal Analytics to assess cases like theirs in order to glean data-driven insights on judges, parties, and their opposing counsel. Attorneys in 2021 used Legal Analytics to obtain the kind of competitive intelligence that could swing the outcome of their case to their side.
Win Business
It was clear that in 2021, many attorneys understood that the benefits of Legal Analytics expand far beyond the courtroom. Attorneys reported using Legal Analytics to prepare effective pitches and assess their potential competitors in the race for clients and business. By learning the track record of their potential competitors – their strengths and weaknesses – attorneys who used Legal Analytics were able to create pitches that were stronger and more persuasive. Not only that, but many of these attorneys reported using Legal Analytics to assess the likely amount of time and resources their particular case might consume (by analyzing the progression of cases similar to theirs), which enabled them to create an accurate litigation budget and settle on a pitch price that maximized both their likelihood of winning the bid and their eventual profits on the case.
Attorneys in 2021 also reported being able to gain these strengths in litigation and business more quickly and efficiently with Legal Analytics, which translated to increased cost savings.
In many ways, 2021 was an anomalous year that presented different challenges from 2020. Despite this, in the sphere of litigation analytics, legal professionals continued to incorporate Legal Analytics into their practice. The main trends in the primary uses of Legal Analytics centered on leveraging Legal Analytics for attorneys to provide better service to their clients and maximize their ability to win against their competitors in the courtroom and in the boardroom. We look forward to contributing to the increasingly important role of Legal Analytics in the legal industry in years to come.
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