1. Cost Effective Lexis & Westlaw and Alternatives to Lexis & Westlaw Prof. Bouvier’s Legal Writing Class, Spring 2012 22

2. Low Cost Databases

3. Stripped down versions of Lexis/WL
Casemaker –Free w/ free student OSBA membership
Fastcase – Free w/ Cleve Metro bar membership.
Versus Law – Free to Law students
Bloomberg Law – Firms buy it.

4. 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

5. Stripped Down Versions of Lexis and Westlaw
Casemaker – best coverage for Ohio.
Fastcase – Natural Language, Visual Charts
Bloomberg – Search capability, best citator, expansive content
VersusLaw – Cheapest, worst coverage

7. Also NOTES likes WLNext

9. Field searching as well if click on advanced search

12. Terms and Connectors Searching
Must use when narrowing in WestlawNext
Makes searches more precise
Some databases do not have natural language

13. Terms and Connectors How To
Step One- TERMS – from your issue statement/assignment of error
Step Two– SYNONYMS
Step Three – add connectors

14. Terms
Issue statement – Whether purchaser of bar can avoid purchase agreement due to impossibility of performance when purchaser was unable to obtain a liquor license?
contract and "frustration of purpose" or (imposs! /3 perform!) and “liquor permit” or “liquor license”

15. Connectors
See

20. Fastcase App Free Iphone/Ipad App Lawstack is another free Iphone/Ipad
More -

21.
Fed App 1925-, Ohio , Ohio unreported 2000-

23. frequently cited by other decisions in your
search results but do not contain all of your search terms

27. Federal court coverage good
Federal court coverage good. Ohio reported App back to 1913, selected unreported 2005 forward.

29. Primary & Secondary – Specific Subjects
BNA
CCH
See Law Databases page for links.
NOT low cost, but not charged back to clients
Have primary and secondary sources, current awareness

30. BNA Libraries
eg. Labor and Employment Law Library, Intellectual Property Library, Tax and Accounting Resource Center

32. CCH Intelliconnect
Topics Covered: Antitrust Banking Corporate Governance Health Care and Medicaid/Medicare Labor & Employment, Pensions Securities

33. CCH Boolean searching, w/n etc. All in One Search Box
Known for their fifty state charts

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

38. 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
Openjurist has the federal appellate back to 1882

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

40. Start with a Good Internet Portal
From the Library Home Page – Legal Research on the Web
Cornell Legal Information Institute (LII)
ALSO
Findlaw

47. Case law
Google Scholar – state reported 1950-, fed circuit/ district 1923-
Ohio Supreme Court
Legal Research on the Web - Cases

48. Search = “birth certificate” marriage transsexual OR transgender OR “sex change”

51. Why don’t we get the Nash case?

53. 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.

54. 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

58. 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

61. Web Sites to Know Thomas.gov – Federal Legislative History
FDSys - Fed’l Govt.
PACER – Federal Court dockets

62. Finding Dockets, Pleadings, Motions
LLRX or Resources for Online Court Dockets to find dockets
Some dockets have full text documents ex. Ohio – Montgomery & Summit Counties, federal
PACER – Federal Court dockets

64. Ehandout

65. Cost Effective Use of Lexis and Westlaw

66. 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

67. Reference Attorney Phone Nos.
LEXIS
1-800-REF-ATTY ( ) (Westlaw)
for law students (Westlaw)

68. Cost-Saving Tips for Lexis/WL
CALI Lesson – Cost of Legal Reseach
Cost Effective Legal Research C|M|LAW Library Guide
Lexis – Conducting Efficient Research tutorial
Westlaw - Cost Effective Research » Powerpoint

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

70. WestlawNext - Cost Recovery
=charging back to client
$60 per search
PLUS charge for items clicked on (Transactional OR Hourly)
PLUS document delivery
Cost chart –Tools tab

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

78. 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

79. Folders & History Save document in folder – History
WestlawNext – Access free for one year.
LexisAdvance – Access free ninety days.
History
WestlawNext - charges again after 2 am next day
LexisAdvanced –charges again after 24 hours

80. Cost Effective WLNext/Lexis Advance
Show the most detail (available in WLNext only)
Sort by relevance
Filter your results

81. Show Less or More Detail

83. More Searching hints
Use Table of Contents instead of Book Browse on WLNext (OK to use Next Arrow on LexisAdvance)
Alerts
Use Find

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

86. Figures are from a Local Law Firm, 2008 – “retail rates”

87. 2010 Westlaw Law Firm Retail Rates
File/Services
Hourly (Per Minute)
Transactional (Per Search)
All Federal Cases
$19.05
Ohio State and Federal Cases
$23.08
Sixth Circuit Cases
$8.60
All Ohio Cases
Get a Document/Find
14.00 (primary), $24.00 (secondary)
Keycite
$6.25

88. Do Law Firms Charge Clients Retail Rates?
Firms often not pay retail – Lexis/WL discounts.
Few firms charge retail
May be unethical to charge more than actually pay.
Search costs $150 retail, firm pays $25
Full Retail (minority of firms)
Allocation –allocate across all usage, billable and nonbillable.
Partial – Nonbillable costs taken out, costs spread over billable charges
Discount- Charge the client the discount rate
Do not bill clients for research cost (overhead)

89. 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

90. 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)

92. Will charge for another search

93. Use Locate instead

94. Does not charge for another search

95. Does not charge for another search

96. Charges a “find”

98. Does not charge

99. 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

100. But can’t do alert on a Focus search

102. Cost Effective Printing
Westlaw decide per line or per document
Print from browser
Copy with Reference
Get and Print, Find and Print

103. Copy with Cite

105. Copy with reference

107. Keycite/Shepards
Brief Check or LexisNexis for Microsoft Office to Shepardize; Westcheck to Keycite

108. Some additional Keycite hints
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