Systems and methods for managing documents for law firms

• US 9,710,786 B2
• Filed: 02/27/2012
• Issued: 07/18/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH (The Woodbridge Co. Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Thomson Reuters Global Resources
• Inventors: Rhoads, Forrest, Liggett, Trace
• Primary Examiner(s): SYED, FARHAN M
• Application Number:
  US13/406,331
• Publication Number:
  US 20120158781A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,968 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/18 Legal services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/184 Intellectual property management

Abstract

The present inventors devised unique systems, methods, interfaces, and software for managing and leveraging knowledge in law firms and potentially other enterprises. For example, one system provides a single user interface for researching case law for online legal research service and identifying and accessing law-firm documents.

Claims

1. A system for a knowledge management system comprising:

a processor; and

a memory that contains instructions that are readable by the processor and cause the processor to;

receive a query that indicates at least one legal topic from a hierarchy of legal topics;

provide a response to the query indicating each work-product document and each case law document that matches the at least one legal topic, wherein the processor is operable to, prior to providing the response;

retrieve each work-product document that matches the at least one legal topic from a first database; and

retrieve each case law document that matches the at least one legal topic from a second database;

determine a validity status of at least one case cited within each work-product document, resulting in a validity indicator, the validity indicator for each work-product document indicating the validity status of the at least one case;

indicate, in the response provided to the query, a reliability of each work-product document using the validity indicator and a rating indicator for each work-product document, the rating indicator for each work-product document indicating a user rating of each work-product document based on previous users of each work-product document;

index each work-product document according to the hierarchy of legal topics based on at least one legal citation and a set of text;

index each case law document according to the hierarchy of legal topics;

receive a second query for a particular case law document; and

provide a second response to the second query indicating each work-product document which includes at least one legal citation associated with the particular case law document according to a depth-of-treatment value, the depth-of-treatment value indicates a degree to which each work-product document evaluates the particular case law document.

2. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the query is an enterprise search query.

3. The system recited in of claim 1, wherein the first and second databases are separated by a firewall.

4. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the degree to which each work-product document is evaluated is based on at least a count that each legal citation references the particular case law document.

5. The system recited in claim 4, wherein, each work-product document and each case law document is associated with a respective date, wherein, the second response is organized according to the depth-of-treatment value and a chronological order based on the respective date.

6. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the processor further converts the work-product document into a markup language.

7. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the query is received from an agent of a law firm, via a user-device, wherein each work-product document comprises internal law-firm content including at least one of briefs, client letters and legal memoranda.

8. The system recited in claim 1, wherein, each work-product document and each case law document is associated with a respective date, wherein, each work-product document and non-work product document that matches the at least one legal topic indicated by the response, is organized according to a chronological order based on the respective date.

9. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the processor is further operable to:

provide the hierarchy of legal topics for display on a user-device; and

indicate a number of work-product documents associated with each legal topic of the hierarchy of legal topics.

10. The system recited in claim 1, wherein each work-product document is associated with an indicator that identifies an author of the work-product document and an office location of the author.

11. A tangible, non-transitory, computer-readable media having software encoded thereon, the software, when executed by a processor, operable to:

index at least one work-product document from a law firm according to a hierarchy of legal topics based on at least one legal citation and at least a set of text corresponding to the at least one work-product document, each legal citation further associated with a case law document having legal precedence;

receive a query that indicates at least one legal topic from the hierarchy of legal topics;

provide a response to the query indicating each work-product document that matches the at least one legal topic and each case law document associated with each legal citation corresponding to each work-product document, wherein the software is operable to, prior to providing the response;

retrieve each work-product document that matches the at least one legal topic from a first database; and

retrieve each case law document associated with each legal citation from a second database;

determine a validity status of each case law document associated with each legal citation corresponding to each work-product document, resulting in a validity indicator;

indicate, in the response provided to the query, a reliability of each work-product document using the validity indicator and a rating indicator, the rating indicator indicating a user rating of each work-product document based on previous users of each work-product document;

receive a second query for a particular case law document; and

provide a second response to the second query indicating each work-product document which includes the at least one legal citation associated with the particular case law document according to a depth-of-treatment value, the depth-of-treatment value indicates a degree to which each work-product document evaluates the particular case law document.

12. A method for facilitating a knowledge management system comprising:

receiving at least one work-product document from a law firm, each work-product document including at least one legal citation and at least a set of text, the at least one legal citation associated with a non-work-product document having legal precedence;

indexing each work-product document according to a hierarchy of legal topics based on the at least one legal citation and the set of text;

indexing each non-work-product document associated with the at least one legal citation included in each work-product document according to the hierarchy of legal topics;

generating a validity indicator that indicates a validity status of the legal precedence for each non-work-product document associated with the at least one legal citation included in each work-product document;

generating an indicator that indicates a user rating of each work-product document based on previous users of each work-product document;

receiving a query that indicates at least one legal topic of the hierarchy of legal topics; and

providing a response to the query indicating each work-product document and non-work-product document that matches the at least one legal topic, the response indicating a reliability of each work-product document using the validity indicator for each non-work-product document and the rating indicator for each work-product document, wherein providing the response includes;

retrieving each work-product document that matches the at least one legal topic from a first database; and

retrieving each non-work-product document that matches the at least one legal topic from a second database;

receiving a second query for a particular non-work-product document; and

providing a second response to the second query indicating each work-product document which includes at least one legal citation associated with the particular non-work-product document according to a depth-of-treatment value, the depth-of-treatment value indicates a degree to which each work-product document evaluates the particular non-work-product document.