Lex Machina

The Impact of the Pandemic Shutdown on New Case Filings in State Courts

The COVID-19 pandemic halted non-essential social and economic activities including the day-to-day operation of courthouses. During the shutdown, courts adopted special guidelines for providing essential legal services (e.g., bond hearings, temporary restraining orders). Some courts encouraged the use of electronic filings while others emphasized physical dropboxes. Lex Machina surveyed its current state civil trial court modules to examine how the pandemic shutdown impacted new case filings in state courts, which handle a tremendous volume and breadth of matters. Our survey of new case filings in nine state courts during April and May 2020 revealed the following observations: Case filings in state courts were significantly reduced during the shutdown. For the nine state courts that Lex Machina reviewed, total case filings in April 2020 were down 53% compared to April 2019, and filings in May 2020 were down 49% compared to May 2019. Case filings for limited jurisdiction cases were more impacted than general/unlimited jurisdiction cases in the California and Texas courts that Lex Machina reviewed, suggesting that corporate litigation plaintiffs were less affected in pursuing litigation than individuals. Courts that permitted only essential civil cases to be filed during the pandemic shutdown saw a surge in new filings after courthouses [...]

By Gloria Huang|2020-06-27T07:43:43+00:00June 25th, 2020|Analytics Articles, Legal Trends|

Lex Machina Launches the New COVID-19 Impact Analyzer App

The Lex Machina team is excited to introduce the new COVID-19 Impact Analyzer App (the “COVID App”). COVID-19 has impacted all aspects of our lives and the legal profession, and the uncertainty and speculation have been obstacles in moving forward. Lex Machina’s COVID-19 App can eliminate some of the guesswork in the legal profession by providing the data and analytics to help everyone understand how COVID-19 has affected federal district litigation. The COVID App provides data and analytics regarding: New total case filings New case filings by practice area Findings (i.e., court-enforceable determinations) Complaints that mention COVID-19 or related terms Lex Machina used a combination of machine learning and attorney review to present the most comprehensive and accurate data possible in its COVID App. The easy-to-use interface will allow individuals and organizations to search the data by week, beginning the week of February 24, 2020, and compare the data against previous years. Among the revealing insights that may be gleaned from the COVID App are: Case filings for insurance, employment, and securities cases consistently increased during weeks in March, April, and May 2020 compared to 2019. Findings at trial were down during weeks of March, April, and May compared to [...]

By Gloria Huang|2020-06-16T18:36:55+00:00June 16th, 2020|Announcements, Product|

Lex Machina Launches Legal Analytics for Sacramento County Superior Court and Clark County Court (Las Vegas Area)

The Lex Machina team is excited to launch Legal Analytics for Sacramento County Superior Court (“Sacramento”) and Clark County Court (Las Vegas Area) (“Clark County”). Including over 170,000 combined civil court cases filed January 2016 or later, these are important venues for state court litigation. Located in the California State Capitol, Sacramento is a key court for civil cases involving government entities and businesses. Clark County District Court is the largest general jurisdiction court in Nevada, serving more than 2.1 million citizens in the Las Vegas area. Lex Machina provides valuable data-driven insights about judges, law firms, individual attorneys, and parties in state courts. Now, the analytics that Lex Machina is known for are also available for these important state courts. Lex Machina allows users to filter Sacramento cases by the following information in order to find the most relevant cases: Case Types – Contracts, Employment, Real Property, Torts (Vehicle), Torts (Non-Vehicle), Other Civil Case Tags – Collections, CRC 3.4 Complex, General Jurisdiction, Limited Jurisdiction Trial Damages – General Damages (Judgment on the Merits), General Damages (Jury Verdict), Attorneys’ Fees / Costs Trial Rulings – Bench Trial, Jury Verdict, Default Judgment, Consent Judgment, Other Judgment Trial Resolutions – Plaintiff Win, [...]

By Gloria Huang|2020-06-02T04:30:07+00:00June 1st, 2020|Announcements, Product|

April 2020 Summary: Ongoing Impacts of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Litigation Activity in Federal District Court

Lex Machina continues to explore how courts are affected by the social changes due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Our analysis of court activity through March and the first two weeks of April in 2020 compared to the previous two years revealed the following: Case filings have not yet been significantly impacted year-over-year, though the overall total remains slightly down in 2020 compared to previous years. Case activity is down in 2020 compared to 2018 and 2019. COVID-19 is showing up in 2020 court records mainly due to general orders. However, 200+ cases filed since April 1st mention the coronavirus pandemic in the complaint. Now, we are looking at updated data from the first four weeks of April. To understand whether these trends continue, we compared court activity for the four weeks of April 2018, 2019, and 2020. Our analysis of court activity in April revealed the following: Year-over-year trends that continue through April of 2020: Case filings continue to not be significantly impacted year-over-year, and litigants continue to move forward with planned litigation, though the overall total remains slightly down in 2020 compared to previous years. Watching each specific practice area, we notice, however, that filings are trending up for some [...]

By Gloria Huang|2020-05-26T15:30:27+00:00May 26th, 2020|Analytics Articles, Legal Trends|

Tracking New Litigation Caused By COVID-19

The social and economic changes due to the COVID-19 crisis are affecting the business and practice of law. In federal district court, we have seen a slowdown in court activity, but not in case filings. In this blog post, we investigate situations in which COVID-19 social and economic changes may be the driving forces behind new case filings. Here is a summary of the trends that we’ve observed so far: COVID-19 Case Filings are Trending Upward. New cases with complaints citing COVID-19 are increasing week-over-week since March 1, including 110% between the weeks of April 12-18 and April 19-25 alone and 16% the following week. Leading Practice Areas with COVID-19 Keyword Matches. Contracts and insurance are the two practice areas with the largest number of complaints filed in the specified time period that cite COVID-19 keywords, with 168 and 104 cases respectively, followed by employment with 42. Leading Practice Areas with Confirmed Case Filings Directly Resulting from COVID-19. Contracts, insurance, and employment are the three practice areas with the largest number of cases (128, 98, and 19 cases respectively) that (a) would not have been filed if not for the pandemic, and/or (b) have claims substantially exacerbated by the pandemic. [...]

By Rachel Bailey|2020-05-13T22:10:10+00:00May 11th, 2020|Analytics Articles, Legal Trends|

April Two-Week Update: Ongoing Impacts of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Litigation Activity in Federal District Court

Lex Machina continues to explore how courts are affected by the social changes due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Our analysis of court activity in March revealed the following: Case filings have not yet been significantly impacted year-over-year. Case activity is down. COVID-19 is showing up in court records mainly due to general orders regarding procedural changes. To understand whether these trends continue, we compared court activity for the first two weeks of April 2018, 2019, and 2020. Our analysis of court activity in April revealed the following: The trend continues into April: case filings have not yet been significantly impacted year-over-year. The trend continues into April: case activity is still down. The trend continues into April: COVID-19 is showing up in court records mainly due to general orders. However, 200+ cases filed since April 1st mention the coronavirus pandemic in the complaint. To understand whether the March trends continued into April, we compared court activity for the first two weeks of April 2018, 2019, and 2020 including 10 business days each year. The specific dates are April 1 to April 14, 2018; April 1 to April 14, 2019; and April 1 to April 14, 2020. Trends through April 2020 [...]

By Rachel Bailey|2020-05-04T20:23:25+00:00April 25th, 2020|Analytics Articles, Legal Trends|

Ongoing Impacts of the Coronavirus on Litigation Activity in Federal District Court

As part of our mission to bring openness and transparency to the law, Lex Machina is exploring how courts are affected by the social changes due to COVID-19. Our work requires us to review what is going on in federal district court every day, and we’d like to share our findings publicly. So, do we see the impact in the data? In terms of the effects of COVID-19 on litigation, it may still be too early to see significant changes in litigation activity, and there's a lot we don't yet know about how COVID-19 will eventually impact litigation. Here's what we do know so far. Summary Of Findings And Possible Explanations Federal district courts are changing their operating procedures such as using remote communication and moving to essential personnel only, but are not closing completely. There is still daily court activity. In order to gain a better understanding, we compared court activity for four full weeks during March 2018, 2019, and 2020. In order to include 20 business days each year, the specific dates are March 4 to March 31, 2018; March 3 to March 30, 2019; and March 1 to March 28, 2020. Here is a brief summary of [...]

By Rachel Bailey|2020-05-04T17:55:33+00:00April 7th, 2020|Analytics Articles, Legal Trends|

Lex Machina Releases its 2020 Patent Litigation Report

This year’s Patent Litigation Report celebrates ten years of legal analytics. With big changes over the last decade in the practice and business of patent law, the analytics tell some exciting stories. This report features federal district court data focusing on 2010 to 2019 overall, as well as a look at 2019. It also covers PTAB data from its inception in 2012 and a discussion of 2019. Highlights in District Court include: Patent case filings declined slightly in 2019 after peaks in 2013 and 2015. While High-Volume Plaintiffs filed over half the patent cases in 2013 and 2015, they filed over 32% of patent cases in 2019. Cases are meeting milestones faster than at the beginning of the decade. The median time to trial and termination decreased by about 100 days between 2010 and 2019. The most active district for patent filings in 2019 was the District of Delaware with nearly 28% of cases. This is in stark contrast to more evenly distributed filings in 2010 and concentrated filings in the Eastern District of Texas in 2015. Various entities related to Uniloc USA, Inc. filed the most cases in the decade and continue to file the most patent cases in [...]

By Rachel Bailey|2020-02-27T18:11:08+00:00February 27th, 2020|Announcements, Product|

Lex Machina Launches Legal Analytics for Harris County Courts

The Lex Machina team is excited to announce Legal Analytics for Harris County. As part of the Houston metropolitan area, Harris County courts are important venues for Texas state court litigation. Lex Machina’s Legal Analytics for Harris County includes two modules: Harris County Court and Harris County District Court. Lex Machina provides valuable data-driven insights about judges, law firms, individual attorneys, and parties in state courts. Thus, practitioners can search for meaningful information from one court, both Harris County Courts together, or across all state offerings. Legal Analytics for state courts is a notable expansion of our platform due to the technological challenges involved in utilizing state court information. There is no unified records system for state courts analogous to PACER in federal courts, so our team worked closely with the court systems to understand their docketing practices and create analytics that reflect the unique aspects of individual courts. Lex Machina allows users to filter cases by the following information in order to find the most relevant cases: Harris County District Court Case Types – Contract, Employment, Real Property, Tax, Injury or Damage, Other Civil, Related to Criminal Matters, Multi-District Litigation (MDL) Harris County Court Case Types – Contract, Real [...]

By Rachel Bailey|2020-02-10T21:29:44+00:00February 10th, 2020|Announcements, Product|

Lex Machina Launches Legal Analytics for Los Angeles County Superior Court

The Lex Machina team is excited to announce Legal Analytics for Los Angeles County Superior Court. Including over 615,000 cases filed January 2016 or later, this is the largest state court by volume. Now, the analytics that Lex Machina is known for are available for this important state court. Legal Analytics for state courts is a notable expansion of our platform due to the technological challenges involved in utilizing state court information. There is no unified records system for state courts analogous to PACER in federal courts, so our team worked closely with the court systems to understand their docketing practices and create analytics that reflect the unique aspects of individual courts. Lex Machina allows users to filter Los Angeles County Superior Court cases by the following information in order to find the most relevant cases: Case Types – Contracts, Employment, Real Property, Torts (Vehicle), Torts (Non-Vehicle), Other Civil Case Tags – Collections, General Jurisdiction, Limited Jurisdiction, CRC 3.4 Complex Trial Damages – General Damages (Judgment on the Merits), General Damages (Jury Verdict), Attorneys’ Fees / Costs Trial Rulings – Bench Trial, Jury Verdict, Default Judgment, Consent Judgment, Other Judgment Trial Resolutions – Claimant Win, Claim Defendant Win, Likely Settlement, [...]

By Rachel Bailey|2020-02-07T21:28:06+00:00February 7th, 2020|Announcements, Product|