When state legislatures across the U.S. convened in early January, they kicked off a process that will likely produce 200,000 new bills and other government measures this year, with the vast majority introduced in the first few weeks.
And when some of these bills ultimately become law, it may already be too late for government affairs, compliance, and legal professionals to take the necessary steps — or for in-house and outside counsel to properly advise their client organizations.
Staying ahead of the curve requires keeping up with and sifting through a massive volume of data, and LexisNexis State Net is uniquely equipped to meet these challenges.
This platform integrates with Lexis+ AI and other LexisNexis solutions to provide a user-friendly interface, apprising you of all of the legislative activities and status actions in the precise areas you need to monitor.
State Net also boasts a new generative AI feature that will seamlessly guide you through the potential effects of a measure.
Additionally, the platform draws on LexisNexis’ unparalleled historical data to predict the likelihood of a bill becoming law as well as how long this could take, furthering your ability to confidently make data-driven decisions.
A new Regulatory Analytics feature does the same for regulatory measures, drawing on decades of regulatory activity and advanced machine learning.
You can schedule a demo here. Or feel free to read on for an overview of State Net, provided by David Giusti, a Lexis representative.
Finding Legislation
Many users begin their State Net research by bringing up a particular piece of legislation.
State Net allows you to search by general terms as well as a bill’s proper name and number, and the platform provides extensive tags and filters that will easily guide you to the proper result.
Once you’ve found a specific bill, State Net will show you the most recent version of the text, along with metadata flagging how and when it had been changed.
A new feature leverages generative AI to provide a summary of the document as you view it, displaying key changes, key requirements, affected individuals and organizations, and other data.
State Net also contains a tool that will show you a side-by-side comparison of any different versions of the bill you select.
Meanwhile, an overview feature will allow you to follow the measure’s progress. It will display all recent updates and upcoming events like committee hearings or scheduled votes.
Drawing on extensive historical data, State Net will also generate a forecast of whether the measure is likely to become law. Additionally, it provides a “Momentum Meter” that indicates whether a bill is moving slower or faster than usual, along with numerous other data points.
State Net has also introduced a Regulatory Analytics feature, which provides similar analysis to state agency rulemaking.
Finally, a tracking center appears with each measure you select, allowing you to assign numerous types of tags.
This allows you to link it to a specific client, track bills based on their likelihood of becoming law, or add your own custom notes, for just a few examples.
Casting a Wide (Yet Highly Targeted) Net
Of course, researchers often don’t know the specific legislation they are looking for and instead want to stay on top of a topic or practice area.
State Net has extensive capabilities to find everything you need regarding your chosen subject matter — while weeding out everything you don’t.
To begin a search by topic, you can use State Net’s taxonomy of industries and practice areas and also filter by factors like jurisdiction and state.
State Net customers also have access to LexisNexis’ issue screening service, where human research analysts will leverage technology to further narrow a query to relevant results.
The service is particularly useful in the early weeks of a new year, when measures are introduced at a fast pace.
Giusti, the LexisNexis representative, provided an example of researching bills related to information privacy. A Boolean search will bring up about 20,000 measures.
The issue screening service reduced the number of results to just under 8,000, validated by meticulous human review.
Tracking Your Topic
Once you’ve determined the measures you’ll be following, State Net’s extensive tracking capabilities set the system apart.
To get started, you can view everything you need to monitor in State Net’s tracking console.
For example, you can customize an email alert based on your profile, which will automatically let you know whenever there’s any activity in any of the measures you’re tracking.
The customization features are especially useful for large law departments or law firms, where the organization will cast a much broader net than individual practice areas.
With the tagging feature, you can ensure that each individual receives alerts and tracks measures relevant to the topics they need to follow, while the broader organization has a far wider scope.
Once a bill is enacted, State Net includes code impact tables, which reference all of the existing laws and regulations that will be changed.
The code tables link directly to Lexis+, where you can view the full text of the measure. The Lexis+ Code Compare tool can be accessed as well, allowing you to see the changes within their full context.
Additionally, within Lexis+ AI you can see a generative AI-based overview of how a bill would change a current law. (A side-by-side comparison view is also available.)
See for Yourself
LexisNexis State Net allows lawyers, government affairs professionals, compliance analysts, and others to make data-driven determinations about where best to invest resources related to legislation and regulation.
It allows you to cut through vast amounts of code and proposals to focus only on what’s relevant to your work, and it provides forecasts backed by LexisNexis’ unparalleled database to guide your planning.
And now, it brings generative AI into the mix to provide ever-expanding benefits.
Curious to learn more? You can schedule a demo here.
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