Everything You Wanted To Know About Opposing Counsel In State Court But Were Afraid To Ask

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State court can feel like the wild west. Personally, I rarely ventured beyond the genteel environs of the federal courthouse. On the rare occasion that I traveled to state court to sit in a cacophonous cattle call, I wondered how anyone could keep any of this straight.

Keeping abreast of the federal practitioners never posed a challenge because federal filings were readily available. State court often proved a black box.

Trellis, the company boldly bringing state court data into the digital age, will soon unveil its new law firm analytics feature, providing insights into state court practice that no one could really get before now.

In a series of sneak peek posts, the Trellis team offered highlights of the new features of Law Firm Intelligence by Trellis.

So you're matched up against Lewis Brisbois (it's probably too small to read, but it's mock data anyway). At a glance, Trellis provides the firm's annual volume of cases, aggregated by practice area, plaintiff/defendant breakdown, and most frequently represented clients.

Law Firm Intelligence by Trellis is based on state trial court data across our solution enabling users to look up a particular metric related to a specific law firm (such as, how many cases your law firm had or has against another law firm) and see the actual dockets and documents supporting the metric. We've maximized our data in a revolutionary and unique way to provide our users an exclusive look into a law firm litigating in state trial courts. We will have coverage for some of the largest law firms in state trial court.

The system also allows the user to check up on the lawyers who've also gone against this firm. In case you're looking to check in with a colleague from across the state to hear what this firm did in a prior matter.

Check in on how often the firm shows up in a given jurisdiction or even before a specific judge to kickstart researching the specifics of the firm's past efforts. Evaluate the success rate of particular motions in different jurisdictions and how opposing counsel have fared on these motions.

Which all sets up this...

Outcome analytics, allowing a state court practitioner to evaluate opposing counsel's success "within a specific county, in front of a specific judge, or with a specific practice area/matter type," and make informed decisions based on that.

There's never a good excuse to avoid gathering more information. After years and years of lawyers struggling to untangle state court systems, Trellis has digitized ample data to get inside some state court black boxes.

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you're interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.