In order to, successfully, engage in litigation practice, it is often helpful to evaluate the histories and past actions of the judges and the attorneys who are associated with particular cases. Bloomberg Law, Lexis+, and Westlaw Edge are subscription databases that provide useful tools that can be used to research judges and attorneys. The following is information about those platforms.

 

 

Bloomberg Law’s Litigation Intelligence Center combines dockets, primary sources, news, and other practice tools in one interface. This is done in an effort to help the user expedite the process of locating information that is essential to litigation practice.  When researching judges and attorneys through this platform, Bloomberg’s Litigation Analytics is a good starting point for finding key information.

 

Bloomberg’s Litigation Analytics contains information about all active federal district court judges. Using this tool, a researcher can learn about a judge’s career history.  This information includes the number of times that the judge has granted a particular motion and how often the judge has affirmed or reversed a decision.  In addition to other useful information, recent news about the judge is provided. 

 

Litigation Analytics, also, provides information about approximately 100,000 lawyers, and, approximately 7,000 law firms. This tool allows the researcher to find out the names of the parties that the attorneys and law firms have represented. It also allows the researcher to find out the types of cases that those attorneys and firms have litigated.  Career and educational histories of attorneys can, also, be found.

 

The interface for the platform provides data visualization tools that allow the charting of information relevant to the activities of judges and attorneys.

 

Litigation Profile Suite and CourtLink

 

Lexis+’s Litigation Profile Suite is a product that is, also, a good place to start in order to find information about judges and attorneys. The platform provides information about, approximately, 48,000 judges and over two million attorneys. 

 

The platform provides profiles of both current and former federal judges. There are, also, profiles of judges on state courts of last resort. Attorney profiles are included in the database once they are verified, usually through state bar and law firm websites. 

 

Lexis+’s Litigation Profile Suite allows the researcher to view graphs that depict things such as practice history, ruling history, and case involvement. The tool, also, provides the background information of over 365,000 expert witnesses.

 

Lexis+’s CourtLink can, also, be used to locate information about judges and attorneys. In addition to providing docket information and the ability to track cases, CourtLink provides strategic profiles that give the litigation histories of potential clients, opposing parties, attorneys, law firms, and judges. Within each profile, there are interactive links that allow the researcher to explore deeper information.

 

 

Westlaw Edge’s Litigation Analytics can be used to find information about the judges and attorneys who are involved in various cases. The information is pulled from state and federal court dockets, in addition to other sources. The researcher can search within search results, which allows the targeting of more specific, relevant information.

 

Like the tools available in Bloomberg Law and Lexis+, Westlaw Edge provides data visualization tools that can be used when studying the activities of attorneys and judges. 

 

If there are any questions about researching judges and attorneys within the resources of the Lucille Stewart Beeson Law Library, please feel free to ask a librarian:

 

Edward L. Craig Jr.

Reference Librarian

elcraig@samford.edu

 

Evening/Weekend Reference Librarian