Cost Effective Lexis & Westlaw and Alternatives to Lexis & Westlaw. Sue Altmeyer c 2012

Transcription

1 Cost Effective Lexis & Westlaw and Alternatives to Lexis & Westlaw Sue Altmeyer c 2012

2 Topics Covered The Cost of Lexis & Westlaw Frugal Lexis and Westlaw Use Low cost databases Free Internet Sources Library Sources (briefly)

3 Flat Rate Plans Still care about cost effectiveness because: client charged Item maybe outside of plan Greater Usage = Greater Cost for Flat Rate Plan next year

4 Billing and the Recession Clients refusing to pay research costs 2011 survey, Law Technology News, 73% of firms surveyed charged clients for legal research, down from 97% in 2008.

5 Percentage of online LexisNexis and Westlaw charges recovered (American Lawyer Law Librarian Survey % or less 14% 15% 15% 41 to 60% 38% 28% 28% 61 to 80% 28% 39% 36% 81 to 100% 14% 15% 15% Not applicable 5% 3% 6%

6 WestlawNext and LexisAdvance Flat rate plan When view a document, charged if that document is off-plan (will get warning).

7 Lexis Advance For Solos - $175/month, $315 for two lawyer firm (all primary sources, plus selected secondary) A bargain typically $3000 or more Ohio only for solos - $50/month

8 WestlawNext For a solo practitioner: $300/month for ONE STATE s primary sources, keycite and some second sources. (estimate from our rep)

9 Citators Shepard s - No additional fee. Included in fee for viewing document. Keycite - Free if the firm subscribes to Keycite.

10 WestlawNext - Cost Recovery =charging back to client Transactional: $60 per search PLUS charge for items clicked on OR Hourly charge for browsing and clicking on documents plus communication charge PLUS document delivery Cost chart Tools tab

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17 Lexis Cost Recovery $60 for search (or as determined by firm) Plus cost of documents clicked on

18 How to Save Money on LexisAdvance and WestlawNext

19 BEFORE you search Ask librarian/managing partner about price plan. Use print or lower cost databases Plan your search before you go online Call the Reference Attorneys (also applies to Classic systems)

20 WestlawNext/LexisAdvance Strategy (if bill to client) Broad search and narrow down different ways (similar to classic) More importantly, limit NUMBER of documents clicked on

21 Folders & History Save document in folder WestlawNext and LexisAdvance Charged once. Then access free for one year. History WestlawNext - charges again after 2 am next day LexisAdvanced charges again after 24 hours, but if saved document to folder, access free via History for 90 days

22 Cost Effective WLNext/Lexis Advance Show the most detail in WLNext Lexis show best paragraph (default) or Lexis overview Sort by relevance Filter your results

23 Show Less or More Detail

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26 More Searching hints Table of Contents free to browse and search on both services. Use Table of Contents instead of Book Browse on WLNext (OK to use Next Arrow on LexisAdvance) Alerts Use Find (applies to Classic systems too)

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28 Keycite/Shepards Brief Check or LexisNexis for Microsoft Office to Shepardize; Westcheck to Keycite (saves for both classic and next generation systems)

29 Some additional Keycite hints for WestlawNext Case itself lists the most negative case Whether billed for keycite in addition to find depends on your plan Limit Citing References, use headnotes, depth of treatment keycite or kc: If need keycite, not text of case

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31 Cost Effective Printing Westlaw decide per line or per document Print from browser Copy with Reference Get and Print, Find and Print Saves for both Classic and Next Generation Systems

32 Copy with reference

33 Reference Attorney Phone Nos LEXIS REF-ATTY ( ) (Westlaw) for law students (Westlaw)

34 Actual cost, next gen vs. classic Next generation systems: Flat rate, a charge for clicking on each document outside of plan plus document delivery for Westlaw. Classic: Flat rate. If go off plan, pay per search (transactional) or hourly. Charges do not depend on how many results clicked on.

35 Classic Lexis and Westlaw Select Transactional (charge per search) or Hourly. Can be additional cost for printing/ downloading Westlaw - additional communications charge

36 Figures are from a Local Law Firm, 2008 retail rates

37 Do Law Firms Charge Retail Rates? Lexis and Westlaw give discounts often firms not pay retail But Lexis/Westlaw costs include nonbillable items (eg. preparing CLE lectures) Firm wants to recover all Minority of firms charge retail (popular on west coast)

38 Ethics and Billing Unethical to bill more than paying Rule of Professional Conduct 1.5 ABA Formal Formal Opinion Pa. Ethics Op (2006) Illinois Bar Association Opinion 85-9 (1/17/86)

39 Billing Methods Full Retail Allocation contract cost allocated across all usage, billable and nonbillable. Partial costs spread over billable charges only Discount- Charge the client what actually pay for their research. Client defined discount rates based on usage for that client. Do not bill clients for research cost goes into overhead costs. May increase hourly fee.

40 Billing Methods Allocation and Discount =most popular. Easy to do with Lexis and WL Client defined rate becoming more popular

41 Cost Effective Searching-Lexis & Classic WL Narrowest Source Broad Search, then Focus/Locate Table of Contents Book Browse on LEXIS (not Westlaw) History (L) or Research Trail (W) (next day)

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43 Will charge for another search

44 Use Locate instead

45 Does not charge for another search

46 Does not charge for another search

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49 Does not charge

50 Classic Searching, Cont d Alerts Shepards or Keycite for Research instead of a search Search by Topic/Headnote (L); KeyNumber/ Keysearch (W) Get a Document (L), Find (W) 50 state surveys

51 Low Cost Databases

52 Stripped down versions of Lexis/WL Casemaker Free w/ free student OSBA membership Fastcase Free w/ Cleve Metro bar membership. Free App. Versus Law Free to Law students Bloomberg Law Library licenses for student use.

53 Stripped Down Versions of Lexis/WL What does Lexis/Westlaw have these do not? Editorial features headnotes, annotations Practice Books (except Bloomberg) Law Review articles (except Bloomberg) Better search mechanisms and coverage

54 Stripped Down Versions of Lexis and Westlaw Casemaker best coverage for Ohio. Fastcase Natural Language, Visual Charts Bloomberg Search capability, best citator, expansive content, dockets VersusLaw Cheapest, worst coverage s/cost/chart

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71 Fastcase App Free Iphone/Ipad and ANDROID App Don t need to be a bar member or purchaser of Fastcase More -

72 Blog post Why Should I Use Bloomberg Law?

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81 Primary & Secondary Specific Subjects BNA CCH Intelliconnect RIA Checkpoint See Electronic Resources page for links. NOT low cost, but not charged back to clients Have primary and secondary sources, current awareness

82 BNA Current Awareness Articles, cases May contain past 12 years ex. U.S. Law Week/Supreme Court Today

83 BNA Libraries Cases, statutes, regs Practice books ex. ABA/BNA Lawyers' Manual on Professional Conduct, Labor and Employment Law Library, Tax and Accounting Resource Center - more

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90 CCH Intelliconnect Both Primary and Secondary Sources Topics Covered: Banking Corporate Governance Health Care and Medicaid/Medicare * Labor & Employment, Pensions* Securities * = in the law school s plan

91 CCH Boolean searching, w/n etc. Indexes Current awareness s Sign up Instructions Known for their fifty state charts and tools

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96 Benefits of Low Cost Databases Over Free Internet Better Search Mechanisms Coverage May be more current Trustworthiness Aggregated Info One stop shopping

97 What s on the Free Web All US Supreme Court Cases Reported Federal Appellate from 1882 Some Unreported Fed App, Fed District State cases: reported unreported - early-mid nineties

98 What s on the Free Web, cont d Statutes & Regulations- federal and states Municipal Ordinances Law Review Articles Forms Dockets, Briefs & Pleadings LOTS more!

99 Internet Portals From the Library Home Page Legal Research on the Web Public Records & People Finders Cornell Legal Information Institute (LII) ALSO Other Portals

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104 Use LEGAL Search Engines Cornell University Legal Research Engine LexisWeb FindLaw LawCrawler Justia

105 Case law Google Scholar state reported 1950-, fed circuit/ district Ohio Supreme Court Legal Research on the Web - Cases

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107 Google Advanced Operators AROUND ex. constitution AROUND(5) "home rule ~ searches for synonyms and related words ex. ~constitutionality - searches for constitutional, unconstitutional, etc. * placeholder for a word. Ex. sexual * abuse picks up sexual misconduct abuse, sexual child abuse, etc.

108 Google Operators AND (default) OR (capitalized) Quotes for phrase. - to remove words or phrases. ~ searches synonyms * wildcard to replace word(s) (to * or * ) No truncation sue AROUND(3) brown Fields: intitle:, site:, inurl: define: finds definitions

109 Web Sites to Know Thomas.gov Federal Legislative History will be replace by Congress.gov FDSys - Fed l Govt. PACER Federal Court dockets Some dockets have full text documents ex. Ohio Montgomery & Summit Counties, PACER federal dockets

110 Jureeka Firefox/Chrome add-on Retrieve by citation toolbar Fed, Ohio Official Reports, Ohio Web Cites, ORC, OAC On web documents (html), Jureeka links legal citations

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113 Library Resources C M LAW - Lexis Academic County Law Libraries may charge fee to use computer. Lexis, Westlaw or both

114 In Class Exercises Use ELECTRONIC SOURCES Do not use Lexis or Westlaw am=2&publication=27&pubnumber=188 /today-aba-journal-publishedarticle.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_m edium=feed&utm_campaign=feed%3a+dew eybstrategic+%28dewey+b+strategic%29

115 2012/11/in-new-trend-law-firms-eat-cost-oflegal-research.html