Fastcase, a legal publisher and research service, has released new software to identify overturned or reversed cases in its Authority Check system. The new algorithm, called Bad Law Bot, surfaces citations that give negative treatment to a cited case.
Fastcase CEO Ed Walters told LTN from Washington, D.C., that yesterday the company’s Authority Check system provided a data visualization timeline and citations analysis and integrated citation history into search results, but it had no flags or symbols like its competition, LexisNexis Shepard’s Citations Service and West’s KeyCite, to indicate that a case had been overturned or reversed. Today, however, the Bad Law Bot brings red flags to Authority Check to indicate a case is bad and should no longer be used as authoritative precedent. See Figure 1.
