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Litigation insights from Lex Machina®, the LexisNexis® Legal Analytics® platform, allow law offices to support their recommendations with data. Clients appreciate legal professionals who can explain what similar cases suggest about risk, timing, damages, motion practice, venue, opposing counsel, and reasonable paths to resolution, and Lex Machina enables legal professionals to turn empirical litigation insights into action.
For law firms, the value extends beyond case assessment. Lex Machina supports prospecting, pitching, pricing, staffing, client service, and lateral recruiting. The platform delivers practice and industry-specific insights on resolutions, timing, findings, and damages drawn from millions of commercially relevant lawsuits, making it an essential tool for litigation business development for modern law offices.
Law firms should use analytics for growth because data helps teams identify better opportunities, pitch earlier, and speak to a prospect’s unique concerns. Analytics can show which companies are active in litigation, where cases are being filed, how similar matters have resolved, and which counsel and judges have experience with the relevant issues.
Lex Machina compiles, cleans, and enhances litigation data by combining machine learning with in-house legal expertise. The result is that for each case that might matter to their clients, legal professionals can quickly and easily understand who won, how much was awarded, the procedural path to resolution, the findings involved, how long the case took, and whether certain decisions withstood appeal.
This matters for both new client development and existing client growth. A law firm can use analytics to identify prospects with active legal needs, show its track record in similar matters, and tailor strategy recommendations to the client’s industry, venue, and dispute type. It can also use litigation intelligence to expand relationships with existing clients by spotting emerging risks before the client asks.
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A data strategy gives lawyers a consistent way to use litigation intelligence when it matters. Instead of treating analytics as a late-stage pitch ingredient, legal professionals can build analytics into intake, early case assessment, staffing, pricing, and reporting. See Association of Corporate Counsel, Legal Operations Maturity Model.
With a thoughtful data strategy, lawyers can answer the questions clients ask most often. What is this case worth? What are the relative chances of different case dispositions? Which venue is most favorable for this client’s objective? Should we file that motion? Which arguments have tended to resonate with judges and juries in this venue? How long will it take to get a ruling, or to reach trial? How should we price legal fees and litigation budgets? With Lex Machina, it becomes easy for legal professionals to answer those questions and more.
A data strategy also helps firms connect legal analysis with business goals. Companies demand more transparency and efficiency from outside counsel. They expect firms to offer fee arrangements that make budgeting more predictable and cost-effective. Lex Machina can help firms understand timing, cost, opportunity, and exposure before taking on a new matter.
New client development can feel crowded and reactive. Litigation analytics helps firms focus on opportunities that align with their strengths.
With Lex Machina, firms can identify parties in open litigation across venues and practice areas. They can also monitor newly filed cases and track developments involving target companies, existing clients, competitors, and repeat litigants. That gives the firm a first-mover advantage when a company faces an active legal need.
The strongest outreach does not simply say the firm handles litigation. It shows why the firm is relevant to potential clients now. A client team might identify a new cluster of commercial contract filings in a venue where the firm has deep experience. It might show how similar matters usually resolve, flag a judge’s timing patterns, or note an opponent’s tendency to settle or litigate to a substantive resolution.
In a competitive market, law firms need pitch materials that do more than list credentials. Litigation analytics help firms prove the fit.
A pitch that says the firm understands a court asks the client to rely on a broad statement. A pitch that shows case timing, motion outcomes, damages ranges, prior experience, and party behavior gives the client a factual basis for choosing the firm. Lex Machina’s Case List Analyzer helps lawyers find and assess cases like theirs, while standardized and verified entity data corrects name variations so the firm can analyze the right attorney, party, or law firm.
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Law firm business development also depends on talent strategy. Firms that want to grow in a practice, office, or industry need to understand which lawyers have the litigation activity and client relationships that match the plan.
Litigation analytics can help recruiting teams identify lawyers with active practices in high-value areas, lawyers who appear frequently in important venues, and lawyers who work often with companies of strategic interest. Lex Machina extracts raw counsel data from dockets and court filings, then structures it to generate analytics on law firms and individual attorneys. That structured entity information helps leaders evaluate whether a potential lateral could expand an office, deepen a practice, or strengthen a client team.
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After a firm wins the work, litigation analytics can continue to improve client service. Pricing is one of the clearest examples. Before taking on a new matter, firms need to understand likely duration, cost, risk, and exposure. Lex Machina can help firms analyze case timing by district or judge, assess whether parties tend to settle or fight to a substantive resolution, and understand damages exposure in cases like the new matter.
Attorney fee awards add another useful layer. Lex Machina damages analytics can summarize damages awards in similar cases or cases involving an opponent. The data can be broken down by damages type, and it includes cases in which attorneys’ fees were awarded. Counsel can use that information to evaluate fee exposure, price proposed fees, and estimate litigation budgets with a more grounded view of what similar matters have cost or produced.
Timing and complexity data can also help firms staff matters with the right legal professionals. If similar cases tend to move quickly to a motion milestone, the firm may need a lean team with immediate senior attention. If comparable disputes tend to run for years before trial, the firm can plan for a longer staffing model that uses associates, staff attorneys, litigation support, and project managers efficiently.
With the Lex Machina API, litigation analytics can appear inside systems legal teams already use. The API delivers structured, machine-readable data so dashboards, internal applications, client portals, and workflow tools can pull trusted Lex Machina insights. Law firms use the API to build dashboards, client portals, pricing tools, alerts for monitored matters, and internal reports that reduce manual exports and spreadsheet work.
The API also supports coordinated growth across offices and practice groups. Business development teams can enrich CRM records with litigation analytics tied to clients and prospects, including activity signals, counsel networks, and risk areas. Practice leaders can combine Lex Machina data with internal sources to evaluate litigation risk by client, industry, jurisdiction, or practice area. That helps lawyers and business professionals work from the same defined dataset.
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Litigation analytics can help law firms make stronger growth decisions, deliver better client service, and show why their experience matters. It can help business development teams identify prospects with active needs, give lawyers data-backed material for pitches, and help pricing teams build litigation budgets around timing, damages, fee awards, and case complexity. It can also help practice leaders make more informed staffing, recruiting, and market expansion decisions. Instead of starting each matter, pitch, or pricing conversation from scratch, firms can draw on litigation intelligence that reflects how similar disputes have actually unfolded.
Request a Lex Machina demonstration to see how litigation data analytics can bolster your law office’s business development.
To strengthen your strategy even further, LexisNexis offers a suite of complementary litigation tools designed to work together: