LexisNexis Lexis+
In 2016, LexisNexis asked what legal research would look like when the system could think. Almost a decade later, the answers are the product.
The problem
The deepest library in the world, behind a search box that assumed you were an expert
Content this deep is only as useful as a lawyer's confidence in what they have found. Users told LexisNexis the same four things. The design problem was to make the intelligence helpful without making the interface harder.
I don't know how to query.
I don't know where to start.
I don't know how long this will take.
I don't know when I'm done.
Approach
Put the intelligence behind the interface, not on it
Simple in the front, smart in the back became the engagement's operating principle and, over eight years, its through-line: a two-direction vision system, a research-validated conversational assistant, the citation visualization's entry into the core product, the analytics line's naming, and the litigation-analytics module inside Lexis+.
Act 1 · 2016
A ten-week vision system, and a work group formed on the call
Four user questions as the frame, personas and a real scenario, then roughly 96 screens across two deliberately staged directions: a near-term distributed intelligence, and a future-state assistant. An InVision prototype and HTML specs backed a 90-minute executive presentation. The room split, and that split set up every later act: a regression worry on the first direction, and real enthusiasm for the way the second answered navigation.
The object model
Every object in the product, and every path between them
Before any screens, I mapped the platform's object model: every object Lexis Advance held, and every route a researcher could take between them. It anchored the strategy sessions and opened the executive presentation. It also outlasted the engagement. A year later two concurrent workstreams ran on the same map, the same persona and the same journey, which is how the anti-silo mandate from that spring's workshop got answered in something checkable.
Act 2 · 2017
Query formulation was the threshold problem, so that is where the assistant started
Seven problem-discovery interviews surfaced two things: lawyers could not formulate the query, and they could not tell when they were finished. A journey map, a 21-concept Guided Research system, and chatbot concepts went to leadership, then the work pivoted to query assist. Prototypes were tested with a real firm, co-designed with the client's product lead in shared files, against two MVP principles: guide, don't replicate, and nail it before you scale it.
Sidebar · Shepard's
How an acquired visualization entered the Shepard's experience
Our studio designed the way the acquired citation visualization was folded into Shepard's. It launched publicly as Ravel View in 2018.
Act 3 · 2018
Naming the analytics line, and a term visualization that fed the assistant
Post-acquisition brand architecture with a naming partner, against two criteria: coexistence with Lex Machina (broad alongside deep), and confidence positioning. Facilitated the brand architecture and naming for the analytics line that launched as Lexis Analytics.
Act 4 · 2020–22
Designing the litigation analytics module inside the new platform
Embedded with Lex Machina and LexisNexis to design the Litigation Analytics module for Lexis+, on a use-case framework of entities against jobs, with dual data sources and gateway positioning. Announced January 2021. Then the state-court era: document retrieval, Motion Mapping, and a roughly 500-hour Cross-Court State Search system that was part logic puzzle and part UI. Handed off October 2022, demoed shipped in 2023.
The lineage
What shipped where
Concept on the left, shipped feature on the right, with the connector weighted by how strong the claim is. Verbs are calibrated and should not be upgraded.
Conversational assistant concepts 2017
Lexis+ AI conversational search 2023
An intelligent identity 2016
Protege personalized assistant 2025
Citation visualization integration 2017
Ravel View + Shepard's case cards 2018
Analytics naming 2018
Context, in Lexis Analytics 2018
Analytics module design 2020
Lexis+ Litigation Analytics 2021
Motion Mapping + Cross-Court Search 2021
State Motion Metrics + state-court search 2022
Case-facts search concept 2017
Fact & Issue Finder 2022
Document intelligence concepts 2017
Brief Analysis 2020
Word / Teams concepts 2019
Lexis Create, Protege for Teams 2021
The concepts became the product.
This is awesome. We are very much on the same page!Mac Taylor, LexisNexis
I'm so glad we brought Awasu into this. This is the kind of challenge we need you for.Wade Malone, LexisNexis
PLACEHOLDER: Serena's process quote, pull the exact line from the engagement-story note.Serena, LexisNexis