Updated to add more links to reports and ad Daniel Lewis statement:  LexisNexis Legal & Professional (part of the RELX Group), today announced the acquisition of Ravel Law, a legal research, analytics and visualization platform that was launched at Stanford University in 2012. (It included Stanford Law School, the Computer Science Department and the d.school.)

 

Ravel Law was co-founded by Daniel Lewis and Nicholas Reed, who both graduated in June of that year. Their early funders included NEA, North Bridge Venture Partners, Ulu Ventures and angel investor Ron Dolin, noted Tam Harbert, who wrote a cover story about “Stanford  Startups,” in 2013 for ALM’s Law Technology News.

Now, Ravel Law’s machine-learning, artificial intelligence and natural language processing technologies are helping users mine published case opinions and build specific arguments for use in court, the press release noted.

The acquisition expands the LexisNexis Legal Analytics suite of products, via integration of Ravel Law’s judicial analytics; data visualization technology; and case law PDF content from the Harvard Law Library. The tools will also enhance Lexis Litigation Profile Suite and Lexis Advance.

Ravel Law’s technology also will improve LexisNexis MedMal Navigator, LexisNexis Verdict & Settlement Analyzer, Intelligize and Lex Machina, (also born at Stanford’s SLS and the Computer Science Department).

“The Ravel Law team is excited to join LexisNexis for many reasons, chief among them is that we share a vision for the role of technology in the practice of law in which innovative, highly effective and easy to use tools help lawyers make data driven decisions,” said Lewis, CEO of Ravel Law. “We look forward to bringing our expertise and technology to that effort at LexisNexis.”

Ravel Law and its team will continue to be based in San Francisco.

RELX Group is a global provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries.

READ MORE
Press Release.

LawSites: “Breaking: LexisNexis Aquires Ravel Law, Robert Ambrogi.

ABA Journal: “LexisNexis acquires case analytics firm Ravel Law,” Stephen Rynkiewicz.

Bloomberg Law Big Law Business: “LexisNexis Acquires Ravel Law,” Gabe Friedman.

Legaltech news: “LexisNexis Legal & Professional Aquires Reserch Company Ravel Law,” Zach Warren.  (Free, but requires registration.) 

The Wall Street Journal: “LexisNexis Snaps Up Legal tech Startup Ravel Law,” by Sara Randazzo (subscription required.)

DANIEL LEWIS STATEMENT: June 9th:

 

 

“I am excited to announce that Ravel will be joining forces with LexisNexis!

We founded Ravel in a (law school) dorm room at Stanford in 2012, and since then we’ve made great progress in our mission to help attorneys research more confidently and make data-driven decisions. Your support has been critical to our success. Thank you!

Integrating with LexisNexis marks the next step for us, certainly not a finish line. Through their global reach we will now reach millions of people, and by leveraging their massive data collections we will continue developing cutting-edge technology at scale. We are excited to carry forward our vision with them.

Most immediately, though, we will continue to directly serve you, and you can keep using Ravel just as you always have at ravellaw.com.

Simultaneously, we will begin work on integration with LexisNexis. You can expect that Ravel’s analytics offerings will continue to expand and be fully integrated into Lexis Litigation Profile Suite. Additionally, Ravel’s search visualization will be integrated into Lexis Advance. Finally, Ravel’s Harvard caselaw content will enrich the already expansive caselaw collection available from LexisNexis. We hope to complete integration with LexisNexis by early 2018, at which time we will ensure a seamless transition for our customers.

In short, we are on a trajectory to take something great and make it even better! You can find the full press release of the announcement here.

LexisNexis will be providing more information in the days and months to come, but there will not be any immediate change in our services to you. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us!

Sincerely,
Daniel Lewis and the Ravel Team.”

 

Monica Bay is a Fellow at CodeX and a freelance journalist. She is a member of the California bar. Email: mbay@codex.stanford.edu. Twitter: @MonicaBay.

Cover image: Clipart.com