Attorney Jack Cohen knows both sides of the blame and claim game. He's spent nearly 40 years practicing law, much of it trying injury suits for insurance companies. But he's also written a novel called "Bad Faith," which tells the story from the victim's side. Cohen knows his limitations--you can't fight artificial intelligence (AI). You have to work with it.

For the first time, lawyers can apply legal analytics to cases heard in New York County Supreme Court ("New York County"). Lex Machina, a subsidiary of RELX, the British information corporate formerly known as Reed Elsevier, is announcing today the publication of data on 119,000 cases. The data is based on both dockets (analogous to the abstracts of academic papers) and documents (the full papers). Numerically, this caseload is not a massive expansion to the 4.5m cases already in Lex Machina's database, but Karl Harris, Lex Machina's CEO, argues it is an important milestone because New York County is such a significant jurisdiction. Lawyers are not renowned for an addiction to statistics and maths.

For the first time, lawyers can apply legal analytics to cases heard in New York County Supreme Court ("New York County"). Lex Machina, a subsidiary of RELX, the British information corporate formerly known as Reed Elsevier, is announcing today the publication of data on 119,000 cases. The data is based on both dockets (analogous to the abstracts of academic papers) and documents (the full papers). Numerically, this caseload is not a massive expansion to the 4.5m cases already in Lex Machina's database, but Karl Harris, Lex Machina's CEO, argues it is an important milestone because New York County is such a significant jurisdiction. Lawyers are not renowned for an addiction to statistics and maths.

This year's Global Litigation 50 report focuses on a subject that has never been more topical – the inexorable rise of technology across all stages of the litigation process. Providing clients with a service that is as fast as possible, of the highest quality, rigorous and yet still cost-effective is of paramount importance to the world's top law firms. This is why the commercial market for these services is booming – and why over the past decade, and particularly the past three to five years, leading litigation practices have been driving forward a plethora of tech-enabled initiatives to enhance the delivery of their legal services to clients. This year's edition of The Lawyer Global Litigation 50 contains dozens of examples of cost-effective innovations from the leading litigation practices. Frankly, firms have no alternative. Clients are demanding this approach and rivals that aren't law firms are increasingly providing it.

The innovation upsurge may in part be generational. "If you make partner today in a law firm, and if you were in college with Google, you have different expectations of technology," says Josh Becker, CEO of Lex Machina. The company tracks the activities of lawyers and judges using an artificial intelligence technique called natural language processing (NLP) to analyze court documents and figure out things like how a particular judge tends to rule on particular types of cases. It can also ferret out types of cases, such as patent or trademark, the specific IP a claim asserts, and all the attorneys involved. The startup boom also comes from a new generation of technology.

"The legal industry is ripe for innovation," says attorney and journalist Robert Ambrogi, who covers the role of technology in law. In an influential April 13 blog post, Ambrogi proclaimed a boom in legal tech startups based on a more than doubling of listings on startup directory AngelList. Ambrogi has since produced his own streamlined listing that currently has nearly 500 companies offering technologies to the legal industry. Several are courting attorneys who need better, cheaper ways to sort through the avalanche of legal filings, rulings, and spiderwebs of citations between cases, from the local to federal level. The innovation upsurge may in part be generational.

"The legal industry is ripe for innovation," says attorney and journalist Robert Ambrogi, who covers the role of technology in law. In an influential April 13 blog post, Ambrogi proclaimed a boom in legal tech startups based on a more than doubling of listings on startup directory AngelList. Ambrogi has since produced his own streamlined listing that currently has nearly 500 companies offering technologies to the legal industry. Several are courting attorneys who need better, cheaper ways to sort through the avalanche of legal filings, rulings, and spiderwebs of citations between cases, from the local to federal level. The innovation upsurge may in part be generational.

"The legal industry is ripe for innovation," says attorney and journalist Robert Ambrogi, who covers the role of technology in law. In an influential April 13 blog post, Ambrogi proclaimed a boom in legal tech startups based on a more than doubling of listings on startup directory AngelList. Ambrogi has since produced his own streamlined listing that currently has nearly 500 companies offering technologies to the legal industry. Several are courting attorneys who need better, cheaper ways to sort through the avalanche of legal filings, rulings, and spiderwebs of citations between cases, from the local to federal level. The innovation upsurge may in part be generational.