Is there a place for document analytics products in the law school legal research curriculum?
Document analytics platforms have a big footprint on the legal tech landscape, and at least one is nudging its way into academia. Newcomer Kira https://kirasystems.com/ is offering a “Kira for Education” initiative to some in the academic community. Kira provides a machine-learning platform that identifies, extracts, and analyzes language in documents the user can drag and drop into a template. Kira also offers a customizable search tool that allows users to highlight sample document language and create their own custom platform. Kira can search documents written in other Latin-based languages, including English, French, and Spanish. Contract analytics products have been on the market for years, although these products don’t typically target law schools. LawGeex, LinkSquares, Contract Wrangler, Affinitext, IntelAgree, and Docusign are just a few of the many contract analytic products currently available.
Some academic research platforms currently provide access to programs that can assist with contract drafting. Lexis Practical Guidance offers “Smart Forms” that include sample customizable forms for various industries and in numerous jurisdictions. These forms contain drafting note advice that alert the user to specific legal issues when incorporating certain language. Bloomberg Law’s Draft Analyzer allows the user to upload a contract and will compare clauses in that contract to other similar contract language within its database. Bloomberg is currently beta testing an analyzer for merger agreements. Westlaw offers “Contract Express,” but this product is not included in academic accounts.
Even with an already crowded legal research curriculum, it may be time to consider the best way to expose our students to these increasingly popular products. It would also be great to hear from our colleagues in law firms about which of these products seem to be getting the most traction, so that we can better prepare our students for practice.
