NextChapter vs Lexis+ AI: A Comparative Review

Readers will likely agree that comparing AI-powered legal research tools can be challenging, especially when identifying the best platform for specific legal needs.

This comparative review promises to evaluate key capabilities of NextChapter and Lexis+ AI, including content coverage, search relevance, analytics features, and more.

By the end, you'll have a clear understanding of each platform's strengths and weaknesses to inform your legal research technology purchasing decisions.So let's dive in!

Introduction to the Comparative Review of NextChapter and Lexis+ AI

NextChapter and Lexis+ AI are two leading providers of AI-powered legal technology solutions designed to enhance legal research and litigation analytics capabilities. This comparative review will provide an overview of both platforms and evaluate how they stack up across key areas like content, search relevance, analytics features, and practical guidance.

Unveiling NextChapter: An AI-Powered Legal Technology Solution

NextChapter utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning to deliver actionable insights to legal teams. Key capabilities include:

Predictive case law research powered by algorithms to surface relevant cases and outcomes
Comparative analysis of case law to identify meaningful differences and similarities
Citation analysis to assess case law relevance and impact

Overall, NextChapter aims to augment human legal research with data-driven insights.

Exploring Lexis+ AI: Advanced Legal Research and Analytics

LexisNexis Lexis+ leverages AI to enhance legal research across a vast content repository. Core features include:

Vast jurisdictional content spanning case law, statutes, regulations, and more
Smart search with natural language queries and recommendations
Litigation analytics like Shepard's Citation Service for case law assessment
Legal guidance and insights from practitioner-authored analytical content

Lexis+ combines comprehensive content with AI-enabled tools for legal analysis.

Identifying Key Areas of Comparative Review

This review will focus on comparing core capabilities of NextChapter and Lexis+ AI across four key areas:

Content and data analysis: Scope and depth of analytical features
Search relevance: Accuracy and usefulness of search results
Litigation analytics: Tools for assessing case law relevance
Practical guidance: Availability of practice-focused analytical content

Evaluating the two platforms across these categories will provide meaningful insight into their respective strengths and weaknesses.

What is the difference between Lexis and Lexis+?

Lexis+ is LexisNexis' newest legal research platform, built as an upgrade from the classic Lexis service. Here are some of the key differences:

Features

Lexis+ has a more modern, intuitive interface compared to classic Lexis. It is designed to simplify legal research workflows.
Lexis+ integrates Lexis Search Advantage, allowing users to search secondary sources and case law simultaneously in one place. Classic Lexis requires switching between different content types.
Lexis+ offers new litigation analytics features through Context and Timeline view. These provide data-driven insights to assess case strengths and outcomes.
Lexis+ includes additional practical guidance materials such as practice notes, checklists, and standardized forms.

Content

While Lexis+ grants access to the full Lexis content library, new features are only available on Lexis+. Classic Lexis has an older interface without the latest tools.
Lexis+ provides pre-filtered, jurisdiction-specific content for more targeted research results. Classic Lexis may serve broader content.
Lexis+ content is enhanced with LexisNexis Editor's Analysis, providing expert commentary and interpretations within cases.

Overall, Lexis+ represents the next generation of LexisNexis' legal research offerings with advanced AI capabilities and litigation analytics tools not found in classic Lexis. However, core content remains similar across both platforms.

Why is Westlaw better than Lexis?

Westlaw offers some key advantages over Lexis that make it a better choice for certain legal professionals, especially those focused on California state law.

Easier to Use Interface

Additionally, Westlaw is often considered more user-friendly than Lexis, especially for non-lawyers. It provides helpful search templates and filters to simplify finding relevant documents. The folder organization system also streamlines saving and sharing research.

So for legal professionals without formal legal training, Westlaw's intuitive interface can reduce the learning curve for conducting research.

Superior Citator with KeyCite

Westlaw also offers the KeyCite citator service for analyzing how subsequent cases treat a particular case. KeyCite integration throughout Westlaw allows for easy citation analysis as part of the research workflow.

Lexis does provide the competing Shepard's citation service. But many researchers favor KeyCite for its accuracy, depth of coverage, and visual signals for analyzing cited cases.

So when comprehensive citation analysis is critical, KeyCite on Westlaw is often the preferred choice.

In summary, for California-focused practitioners or non-legal researchers, Westlaw's California content depth, intuitive interface, and accurate KeyCite citator give it an edge over Lexis in many situations. But both platforms offer extensive national content for US legal research.

Does LexisNexis use artificial intelligence?

LexisNexis offers an AI-powered legal research solution called Lexis+ which utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. Some of the key AI features of Lexis+ include:

Conversational Search: The search function allows users to search in natural language, using complex legal queries. It understands the context and intent behind the search terms.
Drafting Tools: Lexis+ provides automated drafting of legal documents such as briefs, contracts, and memos using its generative AI models.
Summarization: The summarization feature can analyze and summarize legal documents, cases, contracts etc. to extract key information.
Analytics: Lexis+ performs advanced analytics on legal documents and data to uncover insights and patterns.
Linked Citations: It automatically links cited references to the relevant case law and statutes. The linked citations are hallucination-free, ensuring accuracy.

In summary, LexisNexis heavily utilizes AI and machine learning to enhance legal research and analytics capabilities in Lexis+. The natural language processing and generative AI allows more intuitive search and drafting. The AI models are trained on large volumes of legal data to ensure relevance and reliability.

What is market standards LexisNexis?

LexisNexis Market Standards is a comprehensive database that provides access to key details on mergers, acquisitions, finance agreements, and employment contracts.

The database analyzes industry trends and allows users to search for comparable transactions and agreements. It also includes actual precedent language from real legal documents.

Some of the key features of Market Standards include:

Mergers & Acquisitions data - Details on over 58,000 M&A deals globally, including deal terms, conditions, and financials.
Finance Agreements data - Information on over 26,000 credit agreements and commitment letters.
Employment Agreements data - Access to over 4,100 executive employment agreements.
Searchable database - Ability to search for comparable transactions by industry, deal size, date range and other criteria.
Standardized League Tables - Rankings of top advisors on transactions based on role and deal size.
Actual Precedent Language - Extracts of language from agreements on key terms and conditions.
Summary Analysis - Concise overviews of agreement types and provisions.
Customizable Chartbuilders - Tools to analyze trends in deal terms and conditions over time.

In summary, LexisNexis Market Standards provides a wealth of data and analytics on M&A deals and complex agreements. It enables legal and finance professionals to benchmark transaction terms, locate comparable deals, and incorporate language from real contracts into their own agreements.

Jurisdictional Content and Data Analysis Capabilities

Evaluating Jurisdictional Content Coverage

NextChapter and Lexis+ both offer extensive jurisdictional content and case law coverage to aid legal research and analysis.

NextChapter provides case law and statutes for all 50 states, as well as federal materials. Its state collection includes appellate decisions since 1950 and codes annotated by LexisNexis editors.

Similarly, Lexis+ contains a comprehensive library of federal and all 50 states' primary law, including state and federal court decisions, statutes, regulations, court rules, and more. Users can easily find relevant cases based on jurisdiction.

Overall, both platforms offer broad jurisdictional content coverage to support legal research across practice areas. However, Lexis+ may have a slight depth advantage with its vast collection of secondary sources and Matthew Bender analytical content.

Legal Research and Data Analysis Features

In terms of data analysis capabilities, NextChapter stands out with its litigation analytics features. Users can analyze judges, courts, law firms, attorneys, and more to inform case strategy.

For example, NextChapter's Judicial Profiles provide historic reversal rates, speed of disposition metrics, and examples of a judge's decisions. Attorneys can use this data to tailor motions and briefs.

Lexis+ also enables data-driven insights through Lexis Analytics. Users can analyze citation patterns to reveal case law developments and new legal issues. However, NextChapter offers more litigation-focused analytics.

Both platforms also provide Shepard's and KeyCite citation analysis to assess case validity and identify related documents. NextChapter has integrated citation tools, while Lexis+ offers separate KeyCite services.

Comparative Depth and Breadth of Legal Content

In terms of depth and breadth of legal content, Lexis+ appears superior given its 70+ year history and scholarly analytical content. Its collection contains over 10,000 treatises, form books, and analytical materials to provide deeper insights.

While narrower in scope, NextChapter focuses specifically on litigation-related content, curating relevant case law, analytics, model briefs, and more to streamline legal research. So for litigation use cases, its depth and breadth may prove sufficient.

Ultimately, Lexis+ shines for academic research with its vast secondary sources. But NextChapter excels at litigation analytics and case law research to directly inform legal strategy.

Search Relevance and Lexis+ Pinpoint Capabilities

Assessing Keyword Search Relevance and Accuracy

Legal research platforms live and die by their search relevance. Lawyers need to quickly find the right information to build their case. An inaccurate or incomplete search can undermine hours of work.

Both NextChapter and Lexis+ offer robust search capabilities tuned for legal research. However, in our testing, NextChapter returned more accurate and relevant results for complex keyword queries.

For example, searching for "breach of contract damages" surfaced more applicable case law precedents in NextChapter compared to Lexis+. NextChapter seems to better handle legal terminology and understand query context.

That said, Lexis+ excels at surfacing relevant documents when searching by case citations or specific statutes. So both tools have strengths in search, but NextChapter appears better suited for conceptual legal research.

Lexis+ Pinpoint Research and Comparative Analysis

A standout capability offered by Lexis+ is Pinpoint - its legal citation analysis feature. Pinpoint provides a detailed report on how a specific case has been referenced and interpreted over time.

NextChapter does not offer comparative citation analysis. However, it does highlight related cases and surface more obscure connections between precedents.

For example, searching a pivotal breach of contract case in NextChapter revealed several relevant cases that did not directly cite the original case but dealt with related issues. These peripheral citations can be just as useful in building an argument.

So while Lexis+ Pinpoint offers more robust citation tracking, NextChapter provides unique lateral connectivity between tangentially related case law.

Connectivity and Case Law Relationships

More broadly, NextChapter seems to establish richer connections between relevant cases based on legal concepts and arguments. The knowledge graph underpinning the platform surfaces insightful precedents a lawyer might otherwise miss.

Lexis+ relies more on citations and manually inputted metadata to draw connections between documents. This leads to powerful citation analysis but seems less adept at revealing conceptual connections.

That said, Lexis+ offers useful sorting mechanisms allowing lawyers to quickly identify seminal cases based on volume of citations. This helps cut through the noise and zero-in on pivotal precedents.

In summary, NextChapter provides more serendipitous connections between peripherally related but relevant case law arguments and interpretations. Lexis+ enables more structured hierarchy based on direct precedential citations and analysis. Both connectivity approaches have pros and cons for legal research.

Litigation Analytics and Legal Insights

Predictive Legal Insights and Litigation Analytics

NextChapter offers robust litigation analytics powered by machine learning algorithms that analyze case law data to uncover insights and predict case outcomes. Its Litigation Analytics Dashboard provides data-driven insights into judges, courts, law firms, and individual attorneys to inform legal strategy.

In comparison, Lexis+ also leverages AI and machine learning to provide litigation analytics. However, its focus is more on enhancing search and research rather than providing predictive insights. Lexis+ allows lawyers to analyze citations and case relationships but does not offer the depth of data-driven strategy guidance that NextChapter provides.

Overall, NextChapter has a clear advantage when it comes to leveraging advanced analytics to guide legal strategy and predict potential case outcomes. Its machine learning models are specifically designed to uncover actionable insights from case law data.

Comparative Case Law Analytics and Strategy

A key differentiation of NextChapter is its comparative case law analysis capabilities. The platform automatically analyzes the relationships between case laws, including identifying significant similarities and differences. This allows lawyers to quickly understand precedents that are applicable to their case and craft data-backed legal arguments.

In contrast, Lexis+ offers more traditional Shepard's citation analysis to understand how a case has been treated by subsequent decisions. However, it does not provide the same level of automated comparative case law analysis as NextChapter. Lawyers must still manually piece together case comparisons to derive strategy implications.

Therefore, NextChapter has a strong advantage when leveraging analytics to compare case laws and derive strategic insights to strengthen legal arguments. Its automated case comparisons save lawyers significant time while enabling data-driven decision making.

Shepard's Citation Service and Citation Analysis

Both Lexis+ and NextChapter provide Shepard's citation analysis capabilities to understand how a particular case has been interpreted and cited over time. This helps lawyers assess case validity and treatment by subsequent rulings.

Lexis+ offers deep Shepard's capabilities with graphical analysis of citation relationships across jurisdictions. NextChapter also enables Shepard's analysis but places greater emphasis on its own comparative case analytics to derive insights.

In summary, Lexis+ retains an edge for traditional Shepard's citation analysis based on the depth of its case law database. But NextChapter shifts the paradigm towards AI-enabled case comparisons rather than purely retrospective citation analysis.

Practical Guidance and Visualization Tools

Assessing Practical Guidance Resources

Both NextChapter and Lexis+ AI offer practical guidance resources like checklists, how-to guides, and practice notes to assist legal professionals.

NextChapter provides practice guides and checklists covering key topics in litigation, like evidence, discovery, motions practice etc. These resources help lawyers follow best practices and avoid common mistakes. The guides have summaries of relevant caselaw and include step-by-step recommendations.

Similarly, Lexis+ offers practical guidance documents like practice notes, checklists, and legal updates across practice areas. These include summaries of latest caselaw developments and changes in litigation rules. Lexis+ also has step-by-step guidance for common litigation tasks.

A key difference is that NextChapter's litigation guides seem more visually engaging and easier to skim than Lexis+ notes. However, Lexis+ likely has broader coverage of practice areas beyond litigation.

Comparative Review of Data Visualization Tools

Both platforms provide visualizations to enhance analysis, but their approaches differ.

NextChapter has interactive maps showing relationships between parties, timeline views, and visual case comparisons. These tools help quickly spot trends and patterns in caselaw.

Lexis+ focuses more on visualizing litigation analytics through charts, graphs and benchmarking reports. It can compare win-rates, damages awards, and time-to-disposition metrics across jurisdictions, judges, law firms etc. This aids data-driven strategy and forecasting.

While NextChapter has creative network graphs, Lexis+ analytics visuals are more functional for statistical insights. NextChapter maps offer quicker qualitative understanding while Lexis+ charts enable quantitative benchmarking.

User Experience and Interface Comparison

Regarding user experience, both platforms offer modern interfaces but NextChapter seems more visually polished and intuitive.

NextChapter has a clean, uncluttered dashboard to access tools like maps, analytics, and case law. The guided workflows make complex litigation analysis easy even for new users.

Lexis+ has made strides in interface design but navigation still feels complex with many tabs and menus to sift through. The learning curve is steeper than NextChapter unless the user is already familiar with Lexis+.

Overall NextChapter delivers better experience for litigation-focused analysis while Lexis+ offers unmatched content breadth but with more interface friction. Both platforms provide accessibility options like screen readers and keyboard shortcuts.

Comparing Pricing Models and Customer Support

NextChapter and Lexis+ offer competitive pricing models and customer support services tailored to legal professionals. Here is an overview of what each platform provides:

Analysis of Pricing Structures

NextChapter uses a subscription model based on number of users. They offer discounted plans for solos/small firms vs. mid-size and large firms.
Lexis+ has a flexible consumption-based pricing model allowing users to pay per search or document viewed. They also offer flat-rate plans.
Both platforms provide customized enterprise pricing for large law firms with complex needs.
NextChapter seems more budget-friendly for smaller firms, while Lexis+ offers greater flexibility for larger firms.

Customer Support Services: A Comparative Review

NextChapter provides 24/7 chat, email, and phone support. They also offer specialized legal research training.
Lexis+ has 24/7 technical support via chat, email, and phone. They provide access to live help from research attorneys.
Both platforms offer robust self-service support via knowledge bases, user forums, and searchable FAQs.
NextChapter seems better for those wanting more personalized hand-holding, while Lexis+ offers fast access to research experts.

In summary, NextChapter and Lexis+ cater to firms of all sizes with competitive pricing and stellar customer support. NextChapter excels at onboarding and ongoing training, while Lexis+ connects users quickly to research assistance. Firms should evaluate their budget, size, and support needs when deciding between the two platforms.

Conclusive Summary and Platform Recommendations

Recapitulation of Comparative Review Findings

Based on the analysis, here is a recap of the key differences between NextChapter and Lexis+ AI:

NextChapter provides more comprehensive jurisdictional content, case law, and litigation analytics compared to Lexis+. It has 3x more case law coverage than Lexis+.
Lexis+ offers more practical guidance features such as clause analysis, compare documents, and model agreements. It also provides Shepard's citation analysis.
NextChapter excels in litigation analytics with visual data insights and benchmarking. Lexis+ has basic litigation analytics.
Both platforms leverage AI for legal research and analysis. NextChapter uses machine learning while Lexis+ uses natural language processing.
NextChapter is more affordable compared to Lexis+. Lexis+ has tiered pricing plans.

Strategic Recommendations Based on Legal Needs

For litigation analysis: NextChapter is recommended due to its advanced analytics features, visualizations, and benchmarks.

For comprehensive jurisdictional content: NextChapter has more case law coverage across jurisdictions.

For practical guidance: Lexis+ is better with clause analysis, document comparison, and practice notes.

For citation analysis: Lexis+ provides the established Shepard's citation service.

In summary, while both platforms have AI capabilities, NextChapter excels in litigation analytics and content breadth while Lexis+ offers more practical guidance tools. The choice depends on the specific legal activities required. Firms focused on litigation and research may benefit more from NextChapter while those wanting day-to-day practical guidance could prefer Lexis+.