Catching up on news and events of interest to our CodeX community, from Ravel in New York to a new e-discovery distant learning option to an artificial intelligence update to business development coaching for women to expanding startups and cybersecurity alerts to growing startups to unicorns and cockroaches.

• Ravel Law CEO (and CodeX Fellow) Daniel Lewis reports that New York Case Law is now “digitized and analyzed” by Ravel. The “comprehensive, authoritative collection of New York case law is now digitized and available to anyone with an internet connection,” he said. The project was conducted in collaboration with Harvard Law School.

“Everyone can search and read all of New York’s cases for free, including milestone cases like Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, which greatly influenced the development of American common law on negligence and torts. Using our visualizations, anyone can explore a case map to identify key cases and trace the evolution of legal topics, taking the guesswork out of research.”

 

 

• The Electronic Discovery Institute has launched the beta version of its Distance Learning Initiative. The online program is “designed to engage practitioners and students to meet their ethical obligation of maintaining resquisite knowledge and skill in the ever-evolving world of legal technology.”

Registration is $1 (cheaper than a cup of coffee.) The program was designed and developed by EDI’s co-founder Patrick Oot, who has been a pioneer in e-discovery education. He’s a partner at Shook Hardy & Bacon, based in Washington, D.C.

• Robert Ambrogi reports that “Casetext’s New Features Help You More Easily Get to the Essence of a Case,” on his LawSites blog. Also:  “Number of Legal Startups Nearly Triples in Two Years.” “Anagua Acquires AcclaimIP and Free Patents Online.”

• Best tech Twitter teaser ever, from @Sean D0herty:\\ “Tech bubble? From Silicon Valley angels ‘You’re either a unicorn or a cockroach.’ http://ow.ly/10jlOV  @FortuneMagazine @eringriffith.”

• Consultant Monica Phillips (Spark Blug Labs) has launched a new business development coaching program for women lawyers. It kicks off today, but goes through June. Phillips also moderates the “Powerful Conversations” podcast.

• FTI Consulting has published a white paper, “The State of Information Governance in Corporations,” based on a survey of 25 in-house lawyers conducted by Ari Kaplan Advisors. See the teaser summary here.  (You’ll have to provide your personal information to get the full report.)

 

• The ABA Journal’s April cover story by Julie Sobowale addresses “How artificial intelligence is transforming the legal profession.” The story discusses NexLP (Dan Roth and Jay Lieb); Chicago-Kent College of Law professor Daniel Martin Katz  (a panelist at our upcoming CodeX FutureLaw); of course, the ubiquitous Richard Susskind; Jordan Furlong; Denton’s new NextLaw Lab and its CEO Dan Jansen. Also cited, Andrew Arruda, co-founder of Ross Intelligence (another CodeX FutureLaw speaker), and others.

 

• Also from The ABA Journal: Victor Li’s “Why embracing artificial intelligence is in your law firm’s best interests.” Check out the podcast and/or read the transcript!

 

• Speaking of the ABA, its president Paulette Brown sent out an April 12 letter to all ABA members, offering an opportunity to receive FBI cybersecurity alerts.

“You are receiving this notice in response to a request from the FBI that the ABA share Private Industry Notification cybersecurity alerts (“cyber alerts”) with the legal community,” she wrote. “These cyber alerts will be notifications from the FBI about specific cybersecurity risks and threats targeting law firms. As the largest professional organization of lawyers, we believe we can distribute the alerts quickly with your help.”

Monica Bay is a CodeX Fellow and a freelance journalist, analyst and consultant. She co-hosts the “Law Technology Now” postcast with Robert Ambrogi. Email: mbay@codex.stanford.edu. Twitter: @MonicaBay.