Proposition Search Is Live on midpage.ai
Remember Casetext's Parallel Search? Our spin, Proposition Search, is live.
We just launched Proposition Search on midpage.ai. Simply type in a proposition you want support for and quickly find the best case to support it. It’s live now for all users.
The Promise of Casetext’s Parallel Search
A few years back, Casetext launched Parallel Search.
The feature allowed users to type a sentence right into the search bar. The search results would highlight conceptually similar sentences from responsive cases, even if they didn’t contain the same key terms you had searched for.
Parallel Search made it easier to find support for propositions. It removed the steps of (1) breaking down your proposition into search terms, and (2) scrolling through search results to find the sentence that supported your proposition.
It was ahead of its time. It was a hit with litigators, law students, and academics. It felt like a new way of doing legal research. I know because when I was practicing, I used the feature hundreds and hundreds of times. Probably thousands.
Room for Improvement
I loved Parallel Search. But as an active user, I was acutely aware of its shortcomings.
In the worst case, the search would latch onto the wrong aspects of the query you typed in. You’d get stuck with pages of results that were not quite right, and wind up iterating on your query several times over, particularly when researching more nuanced issues.
In the best case, the search would return relevant results, but it still took time to determine which case was the best for you to cite. You still had to open results in new tabs and skim them to filter out cases that were factually inapposite, came out the wrong way, or had the wrong holding.
For example, if you wanted a case that said “New York and California contract law are substantially similar,” you’d quickly find cases saying exactly that. But if the fifteenth search result was the one that was factually on all fours and had the right outcome, it’d take a while to find it. Maybe you’d miss it.
Our Take: Proposition Search
Proposition Search on midpage.ai picks up where Parallel Search left off. Like with Parallel Search, you can search by typing in a proposition you want support for.
In this example, we need support for the proposition that the faithless servant doctrine requires repeated acts of disloyalty. So we just type that into the search bar and click Proposition Search.
A lot of these cases are relevant and helpful. But the best case is one that emphasizes that a single act of disloyalty isn’t enough to violate the faithless servant doctrine. We can add a column to sift through the results for exactly that.
With Proposition Search and custom AI filtering, you can cast a wide net for relevant cases, then quickly zero in on the best cases.
We’re committed to building the best experience for hardcore legal researchers who leave no stone unturned. We hope this is a step in the right direction. We’re excited to hear what you think. Go try it out and let us know.