Does WestlawNext really change everything? The implications of WestlawNext on legal research

Law Library Journal

Volumn 103, Issue 3, 2011, Pages 359-377

  Wheeler, Ronald E ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 80054854227     PISSN: 00239283     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Martha Sperry, A Little Late to the WestLawNext Party, ADVOCATE'S STUDIO (Oct. 14, 2010), http://advocatesstudio.com/2010/10/14/a-little-late-to-the- WestlawNext-party.
2. WestlawNext Folder Sharing Taps the Collective Knowledge of the Entire Organization, THE STREET (Dec. 6, 2010, 11:03 a.m.), http://www.thestreet.com/ story/10939374/WestlawNext-folder-sharing-taps-the-collective-knowledge-of-the- entire-organization.html.
3. Marshall R. Isaacs, WestlawNext Review: Google for Lawyers, SMALLFIRMVILLE (July 27, 2010, 5:50 p. m.), http://nysbar.com/blogs/ smallfirmville/2010/07/WestlawNext-google-for-lawyers.html.
4. See WestSearch: WestlawNext Search Technology, WESTLAWNEXT QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE (2011), available at http://west.thomson. com/documentation/ westlaw/wlawdoc/web/wlnwsrch.pdf.
5. Paula J. Hane, Thomson Reuters Launches WestlawNext-the Next Chapter in Legal Research, INFO. TODAY (Feb. 4, 2010), http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/ NewsBreaks/Thomson-Reuters-Launches-WestlawNextThe-Next-Chapter-in-Legal- Research-60975.asp.
6. Thomson Reuters Unveils WestlawNext, the Next Generation in Legal Research, PR NEWSWIRE (Feb. 1, 2010), http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ thomson-reuters-unveils-WestlawNext-the-next-generation-in-legal-research- 83240872.html.
7. [WESTLAW] PRICING GUIDE FOR PRIVATE PRICE PLANS (Apr. 2010), available at http://thepratt lawlibrarian. files.wordpress.com/2010/09/wl-pricing-april- 2010.pdf.
8. WESTLAW NEXT PRICING GUIDE FOR COMMERCIAL PLANS (Feb. 2010), available at http://west.thomson. com/pdf/librarian/L-356047.pdf (hereinafter WESTLAW NEXT PRICING GUIDE). This is Westlaw's transactional billing charge; there are other pricing plans. See id.
9. AMY E. SLOAN, BASIC LEGAL RESEARCH 1 (4th ed. 2009) (discussing the importance to legal research of understanding the different sources of law).
10. Nancy P. Johnson, Best Practices: What First-Year Law Students Should Learn in a Legal Research Class, 28 LEGAL REFERENCE SERVICES Q. 77, 80 (2009) ("For students to relate to legal research, they must know how and when to use the materials").
11. MORRIS L. COHEN, HOW TO FIND THE LAW 2 (7th ed. 1976) (discussing the need to understand "the organizational structure of published legal materials").
12. For examples of books that have emphasized this throughout the past century, see, e.g., FREDERICK C. HICKS, MATERIALS AND METHODS OF LEGAL RESEARCH 43-44 (1923) (stating the chief means of legal research as being law books that are broken into categories like source books, expositions of the law, compilations, and indexes);
13. J. MYRON JACOBSTEIN, ROY M. MERSKY & DONALD J. DUNN, FUNDAMENTALS OF LEGAL RESEARCH 18 (7th ed. 1998) (noting the importance of deciding which sources to use, which not to use, and the order in which to use them);
14. LAUREL CURRIE OATES & ANNE ENQUIST, JUST RESEARCH 17 (2d ed. 2009) (discussing the importance of knowing what sources are available and how to find information in those sources).
15. MORRIS L. COHEN & KENT C. OLSON, LEGAL RESEARCH IN A NUTSHELL 32 (10th ed. 2010) (discussing first steps and emphasizing that it is often wise to begin with a secondary source).
16. ROBERT C. BERRING & ELIZABETH A. EDINGER, FINDING THE LAW 4 (12th ed. 2005) ("[M]ost of the first year of law school is spent reading and analyzing excerpts of cases as presented in casebooks").
17. LEGAL RESEARCH CTR., ONLINE RESEARCH PRODUCT COMPARISON STUDY: WESTLAW AND WESTLAWNEXT 8 (2010), available at http://west.thomson. com/WestlawNext/ assets/pdf/Online-Product-Comparison-Study-19-April-2010.pdf (describing results of a study commissioned by Thomson Reuters).
18. See, e.g., Ken Adams, Kicking the Tires of WestlawNext, ADAMSDRAFTING (Feb. 1, 2010), http://www.adamsdrafting.com/2010/02/01/kicking-the-tires-of- WestlawNext/ (calling it more efficient, quicker, and more relevant);
19. Robert Ambrogi, A First Look at WestlawNext, ROBERT AMBROGI'S LAWSITES (Jan. 26, 2010), http://www.lawsitesblog.com/2010/01/first-look-at-WestlawNext. html (calling it simple and intuitive).
20. See generally JEFF HOWE, CROWDSOURCING: WHY THE POWER OF THE CROWD IS DRIVING THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS (2008) (providing a definition, history, and detailed explanation of crowdsourcing).
21. Greg Lambert, WestlawNext-a Study in Applying Knowledge Management and Crowdsourcing, 3 GEEKS AND A LAW BLOG (Jan. 28, 2010, 8:00 a.m.), http://www.geeklawblog.com/2010/01/westlaw next-study-in-applying-knowledge. html.
22. See Greg Lambert, WestlawNext-Some Issues Answered, 3 GEEKS AND A LAW BLOG (Feb. 15, 2010, 10:23 a.m.), http://www.geeklawblog.com/2010/02/ westlawnext-some-issues-answered.html (reprinting a response from Anne Ellis, senior director of librarian relations at Thomson Reuters, indicating that law student research is not a part of the WestSearch algorithm).
23. SCOTT E. PAGE, THE DIFFERENCE: HOW THE POWER OF DIVERSITY CREATES BETTER GROUPS, FIRMS, SCHOOLS, AND SOCIETIES, at xix (2007).
24. Lu Hong & Scott E. Page, Groups of Diverse Problem Solvers Can Outperform Groups of High-Ability Problem Solvers, 101 PROC. NAT'L ACAD. SCI. 16385, 16385 (2004).
25. There are, though, information technology professionals who either disagree with the concept of crowdsourcing or think it is a myth. See, e.g., Dan Woods, The Myth of Crowdsourcing, FORBES. COM (Sept. 29, 2009, 6:00 a.m. EDT), http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/28/crowdsourcing-enterprise-innovation-technology- cio-network-jargonspy.html.
26. See, e.g., David Hricik & Victoria S. Salzmann, Why There Should Be Fewer Articles like This One: Law Professors Should Write More for Legal Decision-Makers and Less for Themselves, 38 SUFFOLK U. L. REV. 761, 771-72 (2005) (discussing how law professors write about esoteric topics and abstract legal theory);
27. Judith Welch Wegner, Reframing Legal Education's "Wicked Problems", 61 RUTGERS L. REV. 867, 971 (2009) (discussing how scholarly writing involves creative insights, a capacity to reframe problems, developing new judgments, and "multiple modalities of 'knowing' and 'learning'").
28. See BERNARD SCHWARTZ, MAIN CURRENTS IN AMERICAN LEGAL THOUGHT 566 (1993) ("It is the 'academic scribbler, ' more than the judge, who is setting the themes for the developing law.").
29. It is unclear whether results that have never been viewed or printed will appear in a WestSearch result. As of March 17, 2011, no one at Thomson Reuters seemed able to answer this question. E.g., Interview with Mark Schwartz, Dir. of Librarian Relations, West/Thomson Reuters, in San Francisco, Calif. (Oct. 15, 2010) (stating that he was unsure whether less viewed content would disappear or become more difficult to retrieve); E-mail from Mark Cygnet, West Academic Acct. Manager, to author (Feb. 22, 2011, 4:22 p. m. PST) (on file with author) ("The serious question, of course, is whether WestSearch systematically makes certain types of materials less-likely to be retrieved because of how it weighs printing or downloading in its relevance determination. We certainly hope not, but it's important that the question be raised."). The answer is likely to depend on how relevant the result is and whether a key number captures the desired concept. Yet since WestSearch relevance is partly determined by number of views and prints, the logic behind answering this question becomes circular.
30. To answer this question you need to read several statutory sections, including GA. CODE ANN. §§ 16-3-23, 16-3-23.1, 16-3-24, 16.3.24.1 (2007). However, after reading them all, it is § 16-3-24.1 that ultimately defines the term "habitation" to include motor vehicles in a way that answers the question.
31. JEFF JOHNSON, GUI BLOOPERS: DON'TS AND DO'S FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS AND WEB DESIGNERS 360 (2000) ("Web users in fact do not scroll down much and often assume that what is visible without scrolling is all that is there.").
32. Julie M. Jones, Not Just Key Numbers and Keywords Anymore: How User Interface Design Affects Legal Research, 101 LAW LIBR. J. 7, 15
33. LAW LIBR. J. 1, ¶18.
34. See Susan Nevelow Mart, The Relevance of Results Generated by Human Indexing and Computer Algorithms: A Study of West's Headnotes and Key Numbers and LexisNexis's Headnotes and Topics, 102 LAW LIBR. J. 221
35. LAW LIBR. J. 13.
36. Katrina Fischer Kuh, Electronically Manufactured Law, 22 HARV. J. L. & TECH. 223, 227 (2008).
37. Robert Berring, Chaos, Cyberspace and Tradition: Legal Information Transmogrified, 12 BERKELEY TECH. L. J. 189, 190 (1997).
38. Although many practicing lawyers perceive law review articles as irrelevant, lawyers in certain practice areas find them instructive. See, e.g., Max Stier et al., Law Review Usage and Suggestions for Improvement: A Survey of Attorneys, Professors, and Judges, 44 STAN. L. REV. 1467, 1485 (1992) ("[W]hereas professors rarely used law reviews to gain a general overview of existing law, attorneys valued law reviews in large part for exactly that purpose: Evidently practitioners (and perhaps judges and their clerks as well) treat law reviews as an alternative to treatises for summarizing the law in a particular area.");
39. Jay D. Wexler, Defending the Middle Way: Intermediate Scrutiny as Judicial Minimalism, 66 GEO. WASH. L. REV. 298, 333-34 (1998) (discussing how law review articles help judges, lawyers, and courts);
40. Maxwell S. Kennerly, Investing in Lawsuits, Part II: New Law Review Article on Third-Party Litigation Funding, LITIGATION & TRIAL (Apr. 20, 2010), http://www.litigationandtrial.com/2010/04/articles/the-law/for-people/ investing-in-lawsuits-part-ii-new-law-review-article-on-thirdparty-litigation- funding (example of a practicing lawyer finding "an interesting idea" in a law review article).
41. Patrick Meyer, Law Firm Legal Research Requirements for New Attorneys, 101 LAW LIBR. J. 297, 312
42. LAW LIBR. J. 17, 148.
43. LEGAL RESEARCH CTR., supra note 26, at 8.
44. -410 U. S. 113 (1973).
45. -39 So. 3d 263 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2010).
46. See NANCY P. JOHNSON, ROBERT C. BERRING & THOMAS A. WOXLAND, WINNING RESEARCH SKILLS 117 (4th ed. 1999).
47. There are three basic pricing models for nonacademic users of classic Westlaw: transactional, hourly, and WestPro, and many firms have a hybrid of two or more of these models. I only consider how WestlawNext changes transactional pricing. Pricing plans using other pricing models will impact user choices differently. See WESTLAW QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE: WESTLAW PRICING FOR PLAN 1 SUBSCRIBERS (Apr. 2006) available at http://west.thomson. com/documentation/ westlaw/wlawdoc/billing/wlplan1.pdf (listing pricing options for "private plan subscribers").
48. WESTLAWNEXT PRICING GUIDE, supra note 15.
49. WESTLAWNEXT PRICING GUIDE, supra note 15.
50. See Michael J. Lynch, An Impossible Task but Everybody Has to Do It-Teaching Legal Research in Law Schools, 89 LAW LIBR. J. 415, 417-18 & n. 4 (1997) (discussing the necessity for researchers to read and sometimes reread cases and other materials to gain a true understanding of the law).