Recently in Lexis Category

This post was written by John Heckman: "I have been involved with Time Matters for about 10 years, 7 of those as a CIC (Certified Independent Consultant). Many people are aware that I was unceremoniously excommunicated from the CIC program by the late unlamented Charlie Rogers just days before the CIC conference in 2007 for criticisms of LexisNexis.

I had drafted an article on the state of LexisNexis in February of that year (2007) and finally published it my blog in February of 2008 as "Acquire, Merge, Destroy."  I published a followup a year later, and numerous articles since then

Sad to say, most of the analysis in those articles has been borne out, and many of the predictions have come about..."

Continue reading this interesting post and reach the active links by clicking on the author's name.

Source: Does It Compute? 12 July 2010, reproduced with permission of the author.

This post was written by John Heckman: "It's been a while since I've written about Lexis Nexis. Interestingly, several people have written with observations or questions about what I think may be going on.

The first thing to note is that LN continues to push PCLaw as the low end practice management, complete with baseball hats and ad campaigns on Craig's List using slogans like "Practice Manager for hire: 23 years experience. 31,393 references. Loves doing everything you hate to do." While there are also ads for accounting, note that this one does not even mention time billing and accounting.

There have also been concerted efforts to combat bad publicity. Loretta Rupert, former chief architect of the failed Billing Matters program, is reduced to answering questions on a listserv whose existence used to be studious ignored by LN and most Certified Consultants. We are assured that everything is (or will be) just fine, and if Service Pack 2 for Time Matters 10 did not fix a lot of issues (the Worldox link, for example), these will be addressed in SP 3..."

Continue reading this interesting post by clicking on the author's name.

Source: Does It Compute? 16 April 2010, reproduced with permission of the author.

From the site: "As we all know by now, Google Scholar is now home to legal documents. Here's the RS overview post from launch day. As we said then, It will be interesting to see how often the database is updated, if those updates are announced, and if Google will provide a directory/catalog/guide of what is available.

In this Above the Law post, Kashmir Hill, provides comments from Westlaw and LexisNexis.

The comments are what you would expect but are still worth a quick read.

Westlaw

We provide the breadth of information and technology tools to help quickly zero in on specific cases and the facts embedded within them. We provide the context, expert analysis from our attorney-editors and links to supporting materials to help users find the right answers, faster. And, Westlaw includes workflow tools so that our customers can use this information as part of their client workstream.

LexisNexis

They [LN Legal Customers] look to LexisNexis to find needles in the ever-growing information haystack, not the haystack itself. Not only do we provide the most complete portfolio of public and proprietary legal content, but LexisNexis enables legal professionals to conduct their research more efficiently, effectively, and with the assurance of accuracy.

Access the Complete Post and Comments

Source: Above the Law

The active links are available at the source site listed below.

In the news: "Transcripts can be tagged with sticky flags and painstakingly summarized on a yellow legal pad, but why not use software to help you manage, annotate and integrate them with other files? According to consultant Brett Burney, TextMap 5 from LexisNexis is the right tool for the job."

Topics discussed include:

TRANQUIL TRANSCRIPTS

SUMMARIZE AND ANNOTATE

REPORTING LIVE FROM THE SCENE

GETTING REAL WITH REALTIME

VIRAL ABOUT VIDEO

SELECTING THE PROPER TOOL

Read full text

Source: Law.Com's Daily Legal Newswire. 16 October 2009. Copyright 2008.  ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. Subscribe  <http://store.law.com/registration/register.asp?subscribeto=nw>.

From the Announcement:

"LexisNexis today announced the availability of transparent semantic search technology for its full complement of intellectual property (IP) research products - enabling users to find the most precise and relevant patent search results.

Through a development alliance with Dallas-based Pure Discovery, LexisNexis has become the first provider of legal information services to integrate the power of semantic search technology with familiar Boolean search technology, giving the user greater control over the patent research process via a simple, streamlined user interface that matches their typical daily workflow.

[Snip]

The new semantic search solution from LexisNexis and Pure Discovery, however, overcomes such challenges to accomplish four breakthrough objectives in online search:

Transparency...

Fully federated...

In addition, the functionality is also available through lexis.com.

[Their] Source: LN (via Business Wire)

See Also: Learn More About Pure Discovery

Full text and active links are available at the source site listed below.

Source: ResourceShelf, 12 October 2009

Posted by John Heckman: "LexisNexis has finally announced that Billing Matters will be "sunsetted" (no longer supported) at the end of 2013. Consultants have known this was coming for several years and it was obvious when LexisNexis acquired PCLaw that it would not continue to support both products indefinitely. According to the official statement, Billing Matters will continue to be supported with new versions of Time Matters through 2013. However, if you upgrade Time Matters in 2014, Billing Matters will no longer work.
...

For those hardy souls still attached to Billing Matters, in three years Software as a Service billing programs (such as Bill4Time) will easily be mature enough to replace Billing Matters. Actually, they could probably do so now, but that's another issue.

Otherwise, LexisNexis seems now to be pushing PCLaw as the entry to small firms (up to 20 users) and may be getting ready to upgrade PCLaw's "Front Office" functions.  A LexisNexis "Technorelease" dated yesterday claims that PCLaw "is the most widely used practice management software in North America." PCLaw is a Time/Billing/Accounting practice and has never really been described before as a "practice management" program. The same Technorelease pointedly does NOT describe Time Matters as a practice management program. On whether or not PCLaw can "do it all," see my blog of August 24.  

The active link is available at the source site listed below.

Source: Does It Compute?, 7 October 2009

Posted by Joe Hodnicki: "Susan Nevelow Mart's (Faculty Services Librarian, UC Hastings Law Library) has uploaded Reining in the Results: The Use of Human Indexing and Computer Algorithms in West's Headnotes & Key Numbers and LexisNexis's Headnotes & Topics as Tools for Finding Relevant Case Law to SSRN in draft form. The article was presented at the Conference on Legal Information: Scholarship and Teaching, held at the University of Colorado Law School as part of its Boulder Summer Conference Series. So while it appears to be a work-in-progress, it should be very near final.

Mart took an admittedly small sample, "ten pairs of matching headnotes from legally important federal and California cases and reviewed the cases in the results sets generated by each classification," to compare these two very different systems, West's human indexing and LexisNexis' algorithmic indexing systems. So any results have to be qualified from the start. Not a complaint, the task is simply too much for one person to perform comprehensively.

Among Mart's findings: the average percentage of relevant cases found using West's Key Numbers was 83.2%, LexisNexis's More Like this Headnote was 62.3%, and Lexis Topics was 40.5%. Mart writes:

Since a major difference between the two systems would seem to be the degree of dependence of algorithms for creating classification topics and assigning headnotes to each topic, the role of human editors appears to be a definite advantage in returning relevant results. It seems that it is only the Key Number search results that are limited to those cases where the language of the headnote is present, and if limiting terms are present, where those terms also appear. This is definitely an advantage, but the advantage is not inclusive of all relevant cases.

Why? Because the LexisNexis classification system also returns a substantial percentage of relevant cases not found in West's Key Number System: 44% in LexisNexis More Like This Headnote and 28.2% in Lexis Topics.

See also Mart's findings for her study of using headnotes as limiters in KeyCite and Shepard's. Mart conclusion in a nutshell: don't rely on one vendor's tools for comprehensive cast law research. Mart's advice and article is highly recommended."

The active link is available at the source site listed below.

Source: Law Librarian Blog, 24 September 2009

Posted by Carolyn Elefant: "Back in the dark ages when I started my firm, the only legal research options available were the library and a $600/month LEXIS subscription service, which actually had a cap on number of searches.  Fast forward fifteen years and Lexis costs have declined considerably, though not as much as one might expect in light of technological advancements and the rise of free and low cost competitors.  Still, according to the ABA's most recent Technology Survey, more lawyers rely on free rather than fee legal research services.

The change is attributable in large part to the fact that many state bar associations now offer online legal research services free or at low cost as a benefit of membership.   Fastcase and Casemaker dominate the free offerings, though at least one bar - the New York State bar - now offers Loislaw.  As between Fastcase and Casemaker, Bob Ambrogi gives Fastcase the edge in this detailed review at Law Tech News.  Still, Bob notes that both services suffer from one deficiency:  there's not equivalent of Shepards to allow a user to quickly determine whether a case remains good law.  And while there are work-arounds, they can be time consuming. 

If you don't belong to one of the bar associations that makes Fastcase or Casemaker available free (you can see the run down here), you might be able to join one of those bars even if you're not licensed to practice in that jurisdiction.  But a far better deal is to join the Jenkins Law Library which for $150 per year offers the best of both worlds:  access to Fastcase and 20 minutes of LEXIS a day.  That way, if you're researching a brief, you could compile all of your case results and in 20 minutes, zap them through Shepards on the Jenkins' LEXIS account.  Also, if you find cases that are important and you think you may use again, you can use some of these excellent tips from the Delaware Employment Law Blog to retain and organize your research.

Still, if you're a regulatory attorney as I am, the low cost services won't be of much use to you because they don't carry the administrative agency decisions that are critical to a regulatory practice.  And though most agencies now publish decisions online, there's no reliable mechanism for searching them.  At least with Lexis, there's a compromise:  the "specialty" libraries for topics like energy, employment, securities, etc...provide access to regulatory decisions and court cases for fairly reasonable rates - under $150- per month.  And even in this age of free, I consider my Lexis account a bargain compared to the rates being charged when I started out." 

The active links are available at the source site listed below.

Source: MyShingle, 14 July 2009

Posted by Evan Schaeffer: "Here's a basic but useful article from Law.com's Legal Technology page: "At Trial, Don't Leave Technology Behind," by Jamerra J. Cherry--

You know you're ready for trial when you have two boxes of trial binders, work copy of records, note pads, pens and 10 extra-large trial boards. As you jump on the elevator with trial boards in one hand and your entire case on a pull cart next to you, you wonder, "Do I have everything?"

Products discussed in the article include Trial Director, CT Summation, LexisNexis Concordance, and Microsoft Powerpoint.

The active links are available at the source site listed below.

Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi: "Two major legal publishers announced initiatives this week to help laid-off lawyers keep their heads above water and make the transition to new jobs. Coincidentally or not, both West and LexisNexis announced their initiatives on the same day.

 West's initiative is a two-pronged effort built around two new Web sites. The first prong is Between Cases, a new site intended to serve as an online resource for displaced legal associates seeking employment and networking opportunities. The site includes job search tools, legal education offerings from West LegalEdCenter, information and resources for setting up a private practice, and special offers from Westlaw and other West services.

Between Cases also offers free resources for displaced attorneys who want to use their transitional time to perform pro bono work. To that end, the second prong of West's initiative is something it calls Do Justice. In cooperation with the Pro Bono Institute, West is contributing over $12 million in free Westlaw access to law firms to support pro bono work they do. Read more about both of West's initiatives at the Thomson Reuters blog Legal Current and in this news release.

LexisNexis is calling its initiative Lend a Hand. It is offered to U.S. attorneys who recently worked for a law firm with more than 50 attorneys and who are currently unemployed. The program offers free marketing services, networking opportunities and employment resources. These include:

• A free profile on Lawyers.com and Martindale.com.
• Free access to Martindale-Hubbell Connected, the company's professional networking site.
• Free access to the Martindale-Hubbell Career Center, where attorneys can search for legal jobs in their areas.

These freebies from Lexis will last for six months. To get them, you need to qualify, as described above, and sign up by the end of August."

The active links are available at the source site listed below.

Source: Legal Blog Watch, 1 July 2009