Hooked on WEXIS: Cost as Cure When Moving from Law School to Real Life Online Legal Research

In Some Thoughts on the Bob Berring Video Comments, LLB co-editor Mark Giangrande notes what all law firm librarians face each time a new class of freshly minted lawyers join their firms, students are addicted to Westlaw and LexisNexis in law school without realizing what the services actually cost. Sue Altmeyer, Electronic Services Librarian, Cleveland State Univ. College of Law, has posted her Powerpoint step-by-step guide to saving legal research expenses using both services and low-cost alternatives along with some additional comments here. Step one: freshly minted lawyers need to know what's covered in their Westlaw or LexisNexis licensing agreement. While law schools' WEXIS offerings are fairly comprehensive, new lawyers don't realize that their firm's WEXIS plans may not be nearly as comprehensive until the bills come in. Sue's Powerpoint does a good job explaining WEXIS plans, plus illustrating out-of-plan searching with screen captures and how to compute costs. [JH]