Lex Machina Expands Award-Winning Legal Analytics Platform Into District Court Bankruptcy Appeals

Global News

26
Sep
2017

Editor

Lex Machina, a LexisNexis company, today announced the expansion of its award-winning Legal Analytics® platform to cover district court bankruptcy appeals. The new module covers 18,000 bankruptcy appeals, involving both business and individual debtors filed since 2009.

It provides valuable data-driven insights and trends into the unique characteristics that separate bankruptcy appeals from all other federal practices. With this release, Lex Machina has proved that analytic insights can be uncovered for appellate matters and that these insights are enormously valuable for lawyers and their clients.

Bankruptcy appeals are much less common than traditional appeals. Whereas bankruptcy judges are highly specialized, most district court judges rarely encounter bankruptcy appeals, making the process more challenging for attorneys and outcomes less predictable.

“Although there are relatively few bankruptcy appeals cases at the district court level compared to commercial or employment litigation cases, the stakes are incredibly high for all those involved, so it is imperative that attorneys know the lay of the land before entering the courtroom,” said Karl Harris, CTO of Lex Machina. “With Lex Machina, attorneys will now be able to get critical insights into the behaviors of district court judges, allowing them to provide the most informed counsel and formulate the best case strategy.”

As part of the product development process, Lex Machina interviewed top bankruptcy appeals lawyers to better understand their needs and incorporated their feedback directly into the new offering. As a result, Lex Machina has added 10 practice-specific tags and 15 unique “dispute appeals” categories, which attorneys can use to find the most relevant information and insights, and gain a distinct competitive advantage throughout the appeals process. Lex Machina has the only platform that incorporates these unique filters into its offering.

• The new case tags include: Bankruptcy Appeal; Individual Debtor; Business Debtor; Adversary Proceeding; Chapter 7; Chapter 9; Chapter 11; Chapter 12; Chapter 13; and Chapter 15.
• The new dispute appeals categories include: Procedure and Jurisdiction; Malfeasance and Remedies; Officers; Administration; Lift of Automatic Stay; Debtor’s Rights and Duties; Plan and Disclosure Statements; Objection to Confirmation; Property of the Estate; Dismissal and Conversion; Discharge and Dischargeability; Claims and Liens; Objection to Proof of Claim; Avoidance; and State or Other Federal Law.

“If you’re a creditor trying to decide whether or not to file an appeal, knowing whether a particular judge has a tendency to affirm or reverse the lower court’s ruling will have a significant impact on your appeal strategy,” said Owen Byrd, chief evangelist and general counsel at Lex Machina. “Similarly, having concrete data at your fingertips about the expertise of opposing counsel or how often larger creditors, such as banks, win their appeals could weigh heavily into your decision-making. With Lex Machina, attorneys no longer have to rely on anecdotes and educated guesses when counseling their clients.”

Lex Machina will be releasing a comprehensive report on district court bankruptcy appeals in October, containing insights and analyses of bankruptcy appeals cases filed between January 1, 2009 and September 30, 2017. We have also released a blog post today with interesting observations:

• More than 17,000 cases have been pending since 2009.
• Nationally, U.S. District Court judges are more likely to affirm the Bankrupcty Court’s decision (30% of cases pending since 2009) than to reverse, remand and/or vacate (7%)
• The most common issues on banktruptcy appeals include Administration, Objection to Proof of Claim,  and Dismissal and Conversion.