In order to judge the likely outcome of a case, or the best strategy to pursue, attorneys often rely on the sum of their individual experiences and perhaps those of the other attorneys in their firm. Call this anecdotal evidence, intuition or, less charitably, a hunch.

It goes without saying that intuition and hunches, while useful, are subjective and flawed. They also rely on data sets that are quite limited. Any one attorney, no matter how experienced, has a body of direct knowledge that is utterly dwarfed by the universe of available legal data. How can attorneys and firms begin to capitalize on this data and the cutting-edge work being done by data scientists?

First and foremost, law firms can use legal data analysis to win cases and secure good outcomes for their clients. Robust analytics can uncover patterns in how certain courts, or even certain judges, have ruled in past cases that are similar to your clients. It can also give more precise insight into how long a case might last. Best of all, analytics can give you intelligence about your opposing counsel. How much experience do they have with similar cases? How many open cases do they have right now?

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