“I had a colleague doing research, and he’d tell me about issues he had. I’d say ‘well, did you use ROSS?’ He would then log in while I was standing there, we would ask his question and ROSS would return answers that were clearer than anything he returned by using traditional legal research methods.”
Matt Blaine is a Partner in the Business Law and Litigation Department at Davison, Eastman, Muñoz, Lederman & Paone (DEMLP). Matt concentrates on complex commercial litigation, where he takes complicated problems with multiple parties and develops common sense practical solutions. He also advises on transactional matters, including technology contract negotiations, business formations, acquisitions, mergers and consolidations, and dissolutions.
Find key case law in 35% to 55% less time than traditional research platforms.
To illustrate the difference between using ROSS instead of traditional legal research tools, Matt draws a point in the middle of a piece of paper and draws rings around the point, starting far on the outside and slowly spiralling closer. “That’s how you do traditional legal research. You start broad then you slowly work your way in, and maybe you get an answer to your specific question.”
Using ROSS, legal research can be approached in a completely different way. “There’s almost a psychological aspect to starting a research task where you know you’re going to be down in the weeds for four hours, so you wait until you have that four-hour window, and it’s tough to get that in a workday.”
With ROSS, this dynamic has changed. Matt now estimates that he can save between 30%-55% of his overall research time. He has also found that about 75% of the time, ROSS will immediately return on-point answers. That allows him to dive right into constructive research.
ROSS’s research improvements have already changed the day-to-day workflow for Matt and his colleagues. At first Matt found himself reminding his colleagues to use ROSS in their research. But now using ROSS has become second nature. “I had a colleague doing research, and he’d tell me about issues he had. I’d say ‘well, did you use ROSS?’ He would then log in while I was standing there, we would ask his question and ROSS would return answers that were clearer than anything he returned by using traditional legal research methods.”
Unbeknownst to Matt, after he and his colleague went through this experience on two separate occasions, his colleague, on the next occasion, used ROSS to track down a critical case that that they used to address a key issue involving the availability of punitive damages. When Matt asked his colleague if he used ROSS to vet the legal research question, his colleague responded by telling him, “Of course – ROSS is how I found the case.”
Matt provided concrete examples of how ROSS helped him the same way. “I was drafting a trial brief, summarizing the areas of law for different causes of action. I was going through our document management system and some of our templates to try to find some of the favorable law. But when I started asking the questions in ROSS, it brought up excellent responses in our jurisdiction. It probably saved me six hours.”
In the short amount of time that Matt and his team have been on the system, he’s already witnessed the pace at which ROSS continues to improve. “I think that it's great that it's now already a different program with new features since we started our license. That's pretty cool in and of itself, and I think it speaks to the dedication of the ROSS team in continuing to enhance the product.”
The ROSS team is thrilled to bring on partners like DEMLP who are investing early in AI technology to increase the accuracy, timeliness and efficiency of their work. As Matt continues to incorporate ROSS into the firm’s day-to-day routine, we look forward to sharing additional details of how AI is transforming DEMLP’s practice.
“I had a colleague doing research, and he’d tell me about issues he had. I’d say ‘well, did you use ROSS?’ He would then log in while I was standing there, we would ask his question and ROSS would return answers that were clearer than anything he returned by using traditional legal research methods.”
