#fastcase

Fastcase – Legal Research Platform

Fastcase – Legal Research Platform

Fastcase – Legal Research Platform a HUGE thank you to Sean Hocking, the publisher of CannabisLaw.report for introducing us to Steve Errick, the COO of Fastcase, a brilliant next generation legal research platform that augments our subscriptions to Thomsen Reuter Editorial materials, Tax Notes and Bloomberg Tax.

Fastcaseis a comprehensive, nationwide law…

Casemaker and Fastcase – Why Can’t We All Get Along?

Casemaker Says It Won’t Fight Fastcase Lawsuit Over Georgia Law, by Robert Ambrogi, Law Sites Blog

http://bit.ly/1SvAAF3

Legal publisher Casemaker will not fight the lawsuit filed against it by Fastcaseover copyright in Georgia law, its CEO David Harriman told me today. The company agrees that state law should not be subject to copyright and will not file an answer to Fastcase’s complaint, he…

We constantly make fun of the lack of innovation in the legal field, but there are a number of highly talented people out there that battle the constant resistance to change, and make a difference for their own organizations and profession. For the past five years, Ed Walters, CEO of Fastcase, has recognized those whom he lists as innovators, visionaries, and leaders in the law through his Fastcase 50 Award Winners. I was honored to be a part of the inaugural Fastcase 50 back in 2011, and I'm even happier that my fellow Geek, Ryan McClead, received the award this year. (In fact, Ryan is so good, that when the list was initially displayed, he showed up twice!) Here's the write-up on Ryan:

Ryan McClead Legal Technology Innovation Architect, Norton Rose Fulbright Ryan McClead leads Norton Rose Fulbright's Global Legal Technology Innovation initiative, solving information supply-chain problems in one of the world’s largest law firms. Ryan is a regular contributor to the popular 3 Geeks and a Law Blog (perhaps the most prolific contributor recently). According to Original Geek (OG) Greg Lambert: Ryan’s writing is “pure genius.” Lambert adds: “The Exponential Law Firm series, and The Myth of Disruptive Technology are instant classics and not only show Ryan's ability to talk about current trends in legal technology, but also to peer into the future, all in a funny, imaginative, and thought-provoking way. Ryan's projects at Norton Rose Fulbright also expose his creative side. Pushing out technologies directly to the firm’s clients and other consumers across the globe, Ryan is turning the concepts of what we think technology can do within a law firm on its head. We could all use a Ryan or two at our firms, to enable us to break out of our groupthink mentality and see things from a completely different perspective.”

Texas Bar Now Has Fastcase and Casemaker.

Texas State Bar Adds Fastcase Alongside Casemaker, by Greg Lambert, Three Geeks and a Law Blog

http://www.geeklawblog.com/2014/06/texas-state-bar-adds-fastcase-alongside.html

As the saying goes, ’Everything’s bigger in Texas.’ That phrase also applies to the State Bar membership benefits. The State Bar of Texas has agreed to add Fastcase as a member benefit on top of its already existing…

Image [cc] LendingMemo

Ed Walters love to mention that information and data can be 'elequent.' The ideas behind the eloquence is finding innovative ways of collecting, indexing, searching, recalling, and interfacing with the information in a way that captures the attention of the user, and gives them the ability to take action based on that interaction. It might sound like a lot of buzz-words, but when you think about it, the reason we conduct legal research is to obtain a result that allows us to take action, or advise others on what they should do next. As I was watching Ed Walters retweet a number of messages today on the issue of alternatives to Lexis and Westlaw driving legal information to commodity status, there was a comment from The Raveller (@ravellaw) that caught my attention.  "The trend isn't commoditization of research, it's the reinvention of it." First off... let's look at the definition of commoditization: 1:  commodify; specifically:  to render (a good or service) widely available and interchangeable with one provided by another company 2:  to affect (as a brand or a market) by commoditizing goods or services <fierce competition threatened to commoditize prices> In this case, we tend to think of legal information as the products that our courts, legislatures, and administrative offices produce that guide our society on issues ranging from basic rights and wrongs, to how we conduct business in a uniform way. In the researcher's world, we tend to think of it as primary law materials. The comment from The Raveller on reinvention versus commoditization could be interpreted a couple of ways. First, have we already tipped the scale toward primary law being a commodity? Second, does it not matter that the massive primary law pool of information become a commodity in order for other vendors to create inventive ways of presenting the information? Can you get to this second option without first achieving commodity status? I sent a tweet back out to The Reveller and Ed Walters asking. Ed responded with "Data -- esp. primary law -- should be (is?) a commodity. Software to make sense of it will be very competitive." David Houlihan answered with "Primary law is effectively a commodity. Access was the differentiator, but eroding fast." Having just gotten off of an hour and a half phone call on BigData, my brain was buzzing with possibilities of what new technologies, and different approaches to raw information like primary law could bring to the legal research community. We have thought of primary law very linearly for centuries. We are just now coming to grips with the possibilities that a non-linear, even chaotic, approach might unveil the hidden values buried in the raw data, simply because we'd never thought to approach the information that way. Much like technologies have accomplished in the electronic discovery industry. I think that eventually someone will take the billions of dollars spent on e-discovery technologies and predictive coding, and will turn its focus on massive amounts of information like primary law and discover ways of retrieving actionable information that we never thought possible. Who knows... perhaps there will eventually be products spun out of the NSA that will have commercial use when it comes to primary law? Or, perhaps there is some kid in his or her parent's garage right now working on the next great process that will take us in a way that no one predicted in 2014. It is very exciting to think about all the possibilities. So back to my question of reinvention without commodity status. Does commodity status drive invention, or does invention drive commodity status? I think there are arguments for both sides, but I'd say that we've probably hit a tipping point where reinvention and the promise of more elequent methods of making primary law into something new and unique and useful in unexpected ways will drive whatever information has not slipped into commodity status into that category very soon.

One of the best member benefits of a State Bar Association is the ability to access Casemaker or Fastcase (or InCite for Pennsylvania). However, sometimes it is confusing to keep up with which product each state offers. Luckily, the kind folks at Duke University's Law Library have mapped everything out for us. Many law librarians have been promoting these services to the lawyers that want good research functionality, but don't want to either pay a high price for an individual subscription, or don't want to pass any costs along to clients for firms that do cost recovery. If you're unfamiliar with any of these products, go sign in at your state bar association and find out more. In some states, even paralegals and law librarians can use these products without actually having to be a member of the state bar association.

The race for state bar partnerships between Casemaker and Fastcase took another step toward Fastcase this morning. New York, which has been somewhat of a holdout on the free access to legal research benefit, is partnering with Fastcase to provide its members with free access to the product via the Bar's website, www.nysba.org. I believe this brings Fastcase up to 25 state bar associations, and puts the momentum squarely on Fastcase's side. The formal announcement will go out in a few minutes from Fastcase and NYSBA.

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

September 25, 2013

New York State Bar Association Partners With Fastcase

to Provide Free Access to Legal Research Library

Access to Smarter Legal Research Tools Now Available for State Bar Members at No Cost

Washington, DC (September 25, 2013) – The New York State Bar Association and legal publisher Fastcase today announced a partnership to provide 76,000 members of the association with free access to the New York libraries in Fastcase’s legal research system.

The nation’s largest voluntary state bar association is offering access to online legal research for its members in New York, 49 other states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and 113 countries.

Beginning this week, members will gain free access to Fastcase’s New York libraries by logging on to www.nysba.org, going to Practice Resources and clicking on Fastcase. The free benefit includes judicial opinions from New York State courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court. It also offers access to New York State Consolidated Laws; New York Codes, Rules and Regulations; and the New York Constitution. 

As part of the benefit, members may subscribe to the nationwide Fastcase premium subscription for $195 per member per year—which normally costs $995 per year, a discount of $800. In addition, a specially tailored benefit will help new attorney members gain professional and financial footing during their first two years of practice. They qualify for free access to Fastcase’s entire federal and 50-state library, which will be available to them in October.

“We are pleased to provide the Fastcase online legal research library as a benefit to our members,” said New York State Bar Association President David M. Schraver of Rochester (Nixon Peabody). “The legal community has been conducting legal research online for decades. Now we are able to bring our members unlimited access to one of the largest law libraries in the world as a member benefit.”

This member benefit provides NYSBA members with access to one of the largest law libraries in the world, training webinars and tutorials, and free reference assistance. The member benefit is unlimited – with no restrictions on time or number of transactions, unlimited printing, unlimited reference assistance and unlimited customer service included for free.

“This is the new normal, when New York firms are absorbing their legal research costs as overhead, and firms of all sizes are looking to add a nonbillable ‘house account’ for legal research,” said Fastcase President Phil Rosenthal. “This partnership makes the NYSBA and Fastcase a better value than ever for New York firms, because they can reduce the costs of legal research and they can do so with the world’s smartest legal research tools.”  

Over the last few years, 24 state bar associations and scores of the nation’s largest law firms have subscribed to Fastcase, which now has more than 600,000 subscribers.

Fastcase has gained very strong momentum in the legal research market and continues to challenge traditional legal publishers. Fastcase was voted #1 in Law Technology News’s inaugural Customer Satisfaction Survey, finishing first in 7 out of 10 categories over traditional research providers Westlaw and LexisNexis. The American Association of Law Libraries named Fastcase for iPhone the 2010 New Product of the Year. In 2011, Rocket Matter named Fastcase’s apps for iPhone and iPad the Legal Productivity App of the Year, and Fastcase was named to The Best of Legal Times in multiple categories in 2012. Three times the company has been listed in the EContent 100, the most influential companies in the digital economy, alongside Google, Apple, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  And the 2013 ABA Tech Survey reports that Fastcase’s mobile apps are by far the most popular app for lawyers, more popular than all other legal research apps combined.

“When bar associations subscribe to legal research for their members at a volume discount, everyone wins,” said Rosenthal. “One of the most valuable bar memberships in the country just got better.”

About the New York State Bar Association

The New York State Bar Association, with 76,000 members, is the largest voluntary state bar association in the country. The organization has been serving the legal profession and the community since it was founded in 1876. To learn more about the NYSBA, visit www.nysba.org.

About Fastcase

As the smarter alternative for legal research, Fastcase democratizes the law, making it more accessible to more people. Using patented software that combines the best of legal research with the best of Web search, Fastcase helps busy users sift through the clutter, ranking the best cases first and enabling the re-sorting of results to find answers fast. Founded in 1999, Fastcase has more than 600,000 subscribers from around the world. Fastcase is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, follow Fastcase on Twitter at @Fastcase or visit www.fastcase.com.

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Media Contacts:

For Fastcase:

Jennifer Brand 202.731.2114

[email protected]

For the NYSBA:

Lise Bang-Jensen

518-487-5530

[email protected]