Bloomberg Law Launches Machine Learning Case Law Research System

US-based legal tech provider, Bloomberg Law, has launched a new machine learning system for legal research, firmly declaring its intention to be part of the growing AI-driven legal research market.

The new system, called Points of Law, is described by the company as ‘a revolutionary new solution that leverages AI and machine learning technologies to dramatically accelerate case law research’. The system also builds on Bloomberg Law’s existing package of legal research tools, which Points of Law will become an integrated part of at no extra cost to users.

In a statement, Bloomberg said that: ‘Points of Law allows attorneys to quickly find language critical to a court’s reasoning to support their legal arguments. The solution highlights the essential language expressed by a court, enabling attorneys to shorten their research time.’

From a case under research users can navigate among points of law and can also augment their research with related points of law and the citing of connected cases. These are shown as a list, or an interactive timeline via the Citation Map feature. The Citation Map enables lawyers to view the most cited cases, the relationships among key cases and changes over time for the point of law at issue, the company explained.

Case Map example.

As with other legal publishers that offer legal tech solutions, Bloomberg is seeking to leverage its massive data store of legal information, which includes 13 million published and unpublished state and federal court opinions. The platform also has access to all the many other strands of business and economic information that the company has developed over the years.

Scott Mozarsky, President, Bloomberg Law, said: ‘With Points of Law, we have streamlined and improved the legal research process using machine learning and data visualization to reveal previously undiscoverable patterns and insights.’

Points of Law interface at work.

Earlier, Bloomberg Law told Artificial Lawyer that its strategy was about creating a broad platform that utilised AI across multiple elements.

‘Rather than creating a ‘niche’ stand-alone AI-focused product, we are focused on embedding artificial intelligence, machine learning and other advanced technologies into the broad, integrated Bloomberg Law platform. As we add additional tools, content and functionality to Bloomberg Law, they are available at no additional cost to current customers of the platform,’ the company said.

The company has also produced a short video (see here) and a report that gives use case examples of the new capability (see here.)