Skip to main content

Cutting Research Costs

Earlier this week, law firm Locke Lord Liddell & Bissell announced a new cost-cutting policy in its fourteen offices: associates are now required to begin their non-billable research with Loislaw, a lower-cost and lesser-known alternative to LexisNexis and Westlaw. (See the office memorandum at Above The Law.)

Although current U.S. law students enjoy free access to LexisNexis and Westlaw, these comprehensive research services do carry a hefty price tag in legal practice. So in this economy, should we expect other law firms to follow Locke Lord’s example? And if so, what can Duke Law students do now to prepare to conduct quality legal research in a cost-conscious environment?

1. Practice cost-effective use of LexisNexis and Westlaw. Both Westlaw and LexisNexis offer tutorials to help you become familiar with their contents and functions; these can help you avoid wasting precious time on basic navigation and searching. LexisNexis even offers a tutorial specifically for “Cost-Effective Research”! In addition, our Lexis and Westlaw campus representatives present trainings in the spring which are intended to help students transition into legal practice.

2. Get to know free and low-cost alternatives in legal research. Did you know that Duke Law students, faculty and staff are actually eligible for free access to Loislaw? (See the Reference Desk for the password…especially if you plan to work at Locke Lord!) Have you tested CasemakerX, a student-oriented version of a legal research service which is used by firms in nearly 30 states? For details, check out our list of Low-Cost Alternatives in the library’s research guide to Legal Research on the Web.

3. Never be afraid to seek help. The Reference Services staff are available to help with devising search strategies in a wide variety of resources. If you find yourself stumped by a research question, don’t hesitate to Ask a Librarian.

Popular posts from this blog

Black's Law Dictionary 12th Edition Now Online

A new 12th edition of Black's Law Dictionary was published in June. Once the library's hard copies arrive and are processed, you will find a print copy at the Reserve Desk and on the dictionary stand in the library Reading Room. Online, the Black's Law Dictionary database on Westlaw has already incorporated the 12th edition changes. (To access it on Westlaw Precision, type BLACKS into the main search bar and select the source from the drop-down suggestions, or retrieve it from the Secondary Sources content menu.) What's new in the 2024 edition? As with the 2019 update, the publisher promises a revision to every single page . More than 2,500 new terms (such as ghost gun and shadow docket ) have been added, bringing the total number of definitions higher than 70,000. Last month, longtime editor Bryan A. Garner joined David Lat's Original Jurisdiction podcast to discuss the new edition and his editorial process for revising the much-cited source. Of course, w

Free Access to US Case Law

Last month marked a milestone for the Caselaw Access Project (CAP) , an ambitious project from the Harvard Law Library Innovation Lab to digitize centuries of U.S. federal and state case law for free public access. Launched in 2016 with the financial backing of online legal research company Ravel Law (now owned by LexisNexis ), the Caselaw Access Project involved the digitization of more than 36 million pages of printed case reporters. The original agreement contained a commercial use restriction for eight years, which has now expired. The Innovation Lab commemorated the occasion with a conference on March 8 , highlighting the history of the project and use cases for the future. For more information on the history of the project, see Adam Ziegler's guest post at Bob Ambrogi's Law Sites . The Search feature on the legacy version of the CAP website links to CourtListener's Advanced Case Law Search , which has incorporated the CAP content. The beta version of the  CAP websit

Winter Break Reading Recommendations

The end of the semester is almost here! Amid the flurry of final exams and the holiday rush, it might be hard to find time for your perfect winter break book. But a good read can help pass the time on long flights or airport delays, as well as give you a great way to wind down for the night at the end of busy holiday festivities. To help you find something appealing to read before you go, here are seven recommended titles that the Goodson Law Library staff have enjoyed recently. Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall , by Zeke Faux ( Request a print copy   or put a hold on the e-book !) "In this up-close-and-personal account, Faux reveals the highly entertaining and, frankly, horrifying (for human beings and the environment) worlds behind the current crypto scandals. An investigative reporter for Bloomberg, Faux also manages to make abstruse cryptocurrency concepts digestible here. For my fellow legal news junkies looking for a deep dive beyond the FTX/