Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 92% certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Westlaw employs 800 attorney editors to structure case law

Itai Gurari · Itai Gurari, Judicata // Data Driven NYC 21 // Dec 2013 (Hosted by FirstMark Capital) · Jan 16, 2014 · at 7:36

Itai Gurari, CEO of Judicata, outlines the human resource scale of traditional legal research incumbents while presenting at Data Driven NYC.

0:00 / 0:12exact quote · 12.5s

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“They are the dominant case law publisher in the country, and they boast a staff of 800 attorney editors. They have 800 people who are reading opinions, adding structure to it, and summarizing, doing work like that.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

Westlaw employs a staff of 800 attorney editors to read legal opinions, summarize them, and add structure to case law.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

The claim made in January 2014 accurately reflects official corporate disclosures and industry analyses regarding Westlaw's editorial staff. At Thomson Reuters' October 8, 2008 Corporate Investor Day, company executives publicly stated that Thomson Reuters employed 800 attorney editors to organize case law, link legal information, and power search technology. Additionally, legal literature published circa 2009-2010 documented West's editorial process as relying on 800 attorney-editors who analyze cases, draft summaries, and apply the West Key Number System to case law.

During Thomson Reuters' Corporate Investor Day on October 8, 2008, executives explicitly confirmed employing 800 attorney editors who link legal information together and structure American case law.
A 2009-2010 academic analysis published on Columbia Law School's legal information platform noted West's reliance on 800 attorney-editors who analyze cases and write summaries.

Checked against

[1] thomsonreuters.com [2] columbia.edu [3] legalcurrent.com [4] thomsonreuters.com [5] thomsonreuters.com

Thomson Reuters Westlaw 800 attorney editors Thomson Reuters Westlaw attorney editors case law 800 "800 attorney" "Westlaw" OR "Thomson Reuters" OR "West Publishing" "800 attorney editors" Westlaw Westlaw attorney editors 800

assessed as of 2026-07-31

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

attorney editors Westlaw

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Disclosure

Judicata raised $8 million from Peter Thiel and Khosla Ventures

“We've been fortunate enough to have raised about eight million dollars from Peter Thiel and Coastal Ventures, and it's allowing us to do everything we want to do, but at the same time, it's not the half a billion dollars that some of our competitors have.”

Itai Gurari Jan 16, 2014 ▶ 9:46 Itai Gurari, Judicata // Data Driven NYC 21 // Dec 2013 (Hosted by FirstMark Capital)

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Judicata cuts legal ontology creation time from one year to weeks

“And at the end, we've broken down this process into something that instead of taking a year, might take two weeks or four weeks.”

Itai Gurari Jan 16, 2014 ▶ 13:17 Itai Gurari, Judicata // Data Driven NYC 21 // Dec 2013 (Hosted by FirstMark Capital)

Disclosure

Judicata transforms unstructured case law into structured data

“What we're doing is, ah, transforming unstructured case law into structured data.”

Itai Gurari Jan 16, 2014 ▶ 3:08 Itai Gurari, Judicata // Data Driven NYC 21 // Dec 2013 (Hosted by FirstMark Capital)

Westlaw employs 800 attorney editors to structure case law

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