Ambrogi writes
Legal research startup Midpage has reached a critical threshold in its commercialization, its founder believes, as it achieves full data coverage of key U.S. case law and prepares to launch its own citator in the coming weeks.
The company, which has spent two years building its own comprehensive case law database, is positioning itself to compete more directly with established legal research providers by combining traditional research capabilities with innovative AI-driven features for analyzing and navigating cases.
Founded two years ago with $1 million in venture funding, followed by a second $1 million raise last year, Midpage is focused exclusively on building a legal research platform that leverages AI to help lawyers more efficiently find and analyze relevant resources.
The company recently achieved what it considers full data coverage of U.S. case law, including all federal appellate and trial cases and state appellate cases, putting it on par with major competitors in terms of case law content. (It does not have state trial court cases.)
“Unlike all the Word plugin contract startups or all the Harveys of the world, we’re focused on case law,” said Otto Zastrow, Midpage’s founder, in a recent interview. “This is obviously a huge challenge because, while you can do great things with AI and case law, you first have to create this large dataset to even be able to take part in the game.”
Building a Case Law Database
Rather than licensing case law from established providers such as Fastcase, Midpage made the decision to build its own case law database, largely from scratch. Starting with publicly available data from sources such as Court Listener, the company has worked to fill gaps in coverage and improve the quality of the data with the goal of matching established legal research providers.
Zastrow said the company reached a major threshold in December in building its database, hitting more than 10 million cases that cover what he describes as “everything that is important.” The current database includes all federal appellate cases, federal civil trial court cases, and state appellate cases.
The main gaps in coverage are federal district court criminal cases and state trial courts, though Zastrow notes that state trial court opinions are not typically considered essential for most legal research.
AI-Powered Research Features
What sets Midpage apart from traditional legal research platforms is its approach to helping lawyers navigate and analyze case law. The platform combines conventional Boolean search capabilities with AI-powered features that allow users to quickly analyze and narrow search results across multiple dimensions.
read more
