A Lexis employee…

Thanks for pointing out your article. I will definitely read it before I decide what to do.

Anyone out there, like somslawyer, have any experience they’d care to share with me re: theLaw.net?

Results Plus is somewhat helpful, but it was $200 a month with a two year contract. I found myself tailoring searches attempt to get law journal and treatises on the right side so I could click on them at no charge.

To make matters worse, West continually sends books – updates, new releases, random selections – that we send back. It is more of a hassle than a service. Billing is a nightmare.

Yes, I am jaded with West.

Lexis’s prices are not that much better. However, Lexis does offer Shepard’s with an option to retrieve the sources by clicking through the case links. This is around $150 – 200 a month. With Casemaker and Shepards, I believe I am getting a thorough search result. I can buy the specialty West publications (Griffith’s, etc…) in print. It makes for a more inexpensive personal law library than maintaining a West subscription. Besides, in the Jackson area there is always the state law library, MC or my county law library which has Lexis and provides printers with no additional charge for printing.

On a personal note, I spent a good many years up north going to school and McSorely’s is a personal favorite.

Thomson Reuters can dry up and die for the screwing they’ve been giving me. If I can get something elsewhere, I do now.

As one of the bloggers who received a fairly in-depth briefing about WestlawNext, I can help clarify your confusion about in-plan and out-of-plan searches and document views. I’ll do that by providing an example.

Let’s assume that your WestlawNext subscription includes access to all Mississippi state and federal cases (including SCTOTUS), Mississippi statutes and some Mississippi secondary sources. When you do a search on WestlawNext, you can search in any jurisdiction you want, and there will be no charge for the search. This might be helpful if, for some reason, you need to research the law of a different state or federal circuit. You will not be charged to run this broad search or to view the result list; you’re charged only when you have a “meaningful interaction” with a particular document (e.g., printing).

Let’s assume now that you limit your search to Mississippi state and federal cases. As you can see from this screen shot http://lh4.ggpht.com/_iHYDAo93tQY/S2NlrCvorzI/AAAAAAAAGWU/5AbRSen075Q/s1600/result_list_1280.png , you’ll be able to view the search results in the main portion of the search results screen. If you have a “meaningful interaction” with any Mississippi state or federal cases in your search results, you will not be charged, since those materials are in-plan for you.

However, as you can see from the left and right columns in the screenshot, you will also be offered many other types of documents in your search results. Some of the documents may be in-plan. For example, under “Secondary Sources,” you may find sections from Mississippi secondary sources that are within your plan. You can access those documents at no charge. However, both Secondary Sources (on the left) and Related Documents (on the right) will likely also include many other sources (such as federal sources or national ones) that are outside your plan. You will incur a charge when you access those documents (after seeing a warning screen, just as you see a warning screen in the current version of Westlaw if you are about to go outside of plan). Entire categories of documents that are listed in the left sidebar (such as briefs) might be outside your plan (just as they are now).

The materials in the left- and right-hand sidebars in WestlawNext are somewhat analogous to what you currently see under the Results Plus column to the left of your search results in the current version of Westlaw. However, ResultsPlus is limited to about 300 sources, while the materials on WestlawNext cover more than 6,000 sources. Under both systems, you will be charged to access a document that is outside your plan (unless, of course, your current Westlaw subscription includes the Results Plus add-on, which brings any document accessed directly from the Results Plus list into plan: mine does, and I have found it to be worth the price). I still don’t know whether WestlawNext will offer a similar plan (I’ve asked my rep, but he won;t be prepared to talk to me about WestlawNext pricing at all until next week).

Finally, in her post about WestlawNext, Carolyn Elefant, who’s been the web’s most vocal voice on behalf of solos for more than seven years, said: “I want to pay for what I eat, not for all I can eat.” (http://www.myshingle.com/2010/01/articles/legal-research-and-writing/my-trip-out-to-west-a-preview-of-westlawnext/). I think a lot of solos feel the same way.