In addition, the case filing trends revealed that class actions and lawsuits related to singular large-scale events continued to influence the legal landscape and drive up case counts, particularly in the areas of product liability, torts, and insurance. For example, in product liability, the most active law firms representing plaintiffs and defendants were each involved in approximately 800 cases in 2020 that were related to a Bard medical device, which drove up their three-year case counts and placed them at the top of the lists of most active firms.
Some other trends revealed in the Report include the Department of Justice’s continued dominance as the most active counsel overall. In terms of the most active law firms, the Legal Analytics showed that while some law firms with high case counts had dedicated specializations, there were several national litigation firms that appeared in multiple practice areas. For example, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, & Flom topped two different lists for defense firms in the practice areas of Antitrust and Securities, while Fox Rothschild appeared in multiple lists of top firms in the Bankruptcy, Contracts, Copyright, False Claims, Trade Secret, and Trademark practice areas. Many of the most active employment firms, such as Jackson Lewis, also appeared in the lists of the most active firms with cases caused by COVID, as well as the most active firms overall.
The Report revealed several key litigation trends over the last three years, as well as highlighting the law firms and counsel that were most active in different practice areas during this time. Leveraging the data-driven insights provided by the Report can be powerful for gaining an enhanced understanding of the evolving landscape of federal litigation.
Lex Machina’s Law Firms Activity Report presented data from Lex Machina’s Legal Analytics platform. Using machine learning and technology-assisted attorney review, raw data was extracted from PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), which contains documents from federal district court. The raw data was then cleaned, tagged, structured, and loaded into Lex Machina’s proprietary platform. The report was prepared by the Lex Machina Product Team using charts and graphs from the platform. The commentary was provided by Lex Machina’s legal experts.