"Advertorial" Reader Survey Rankings of Legal Vendor Services in the NY and DC Markets

On the heels of second annual New York Law Journal Reader Rankings of Legal Vendors published in September 2011, comes the first annual Legal Times Reader's Rankings of Legal Vendors, (dated Novermber 2011)! Yes, yes, I know both titles are owned by ALM. Both reader surveys were conducted by ALM's sales and marketing teams each time. The difference is that the vendor rankings are supposed to be local market spectific. The former for the New York legal market. The latter for the DC market. The NYLJ vendor rankings can be viewed here. Sorry, don't have a link to the Legal Times vendor rankings. Perhaps one is out, but I didn't look hard for it because, well, my hardcopy is as an "advertorial" supplement.

For my idiosyncratic selection of differences in this "local legal market" rankings comparision, I've tried to limit the comparison to very comparable product categories. One assumption I made was that NYLJ had a catagory labeled "Best Online Search Vendor" while Legal Times labeled the category "Best Online Legal Research" Where I could find perceived comparable product categories used by both, I have identifed the rankings from each reader survey in the below table.

Oddly, the NYLY had a category for Best Legal Process Outsourcing (1. Pangea3, 2. UnitedLex, 3. Integreon) while I found no similar one in the Legal Times ranking. Hey, perhaps I missed it. You know, the whole aging and decrepit Boomer-gen law librarian with just about no functional short term memory thing.

The Legal Times survey did have a couple of interesting categories not found in the New York Law Journal survey. (Loop back up to the whole WTF aging and decrepit caveat.) Here are the three unique Legal Times categories I found interesting. The most interesting one is:

1. Best Legal Research (Includes Print)

1. LexisNexis
2. Thomson Reuters
3. Bloomberg

Are the DC practitioners including BGov in addition to BLaw? Does "including print" mean DC partitioners are including BNA by voting for Bloomberg? NB: THe NYLJ poll was conducted before the announcement of Bloomberg's BNA acquisition. Also, does "including print" indicate that voters are responding to perceived differences in editorial quality, relevance of, and pricing for print titles by ranking Lexis ahead of Thomson Reuters?

2. Best Legal Research iPad App

1. WeslawNext
2. LexisNexis Legal News
3. Bloomberg

Ah, OK aren't iPad apps dandy?

3. Best Corporate Kit/Forms Provider

1. LegalZoom(dot)com
2. Blumberg Excelsior
3. LawDepot(dot)com

Really? DC practitioners are using LegalZoom and LawDepot forms? For exemplary research to work off of? For some  associate telling someone "to send this to the client or the billing partner for review and remember to bill the client 2.5 hours of time re: research and drafting X"? OMG, this is a 60-something corner office billing partner's dream come true if he or she is using LegalZoom and LawDepot forms (read "now I call bill the client for something other than reviewed associate's work, etc.).

And now for my admittedly idiosyncratic selection of category comparisons. Since sales and marketing teams ran these polls, I have no idea if the categories are strictly defined. I also have no idea how the surveys were conducted (eg for each category was a large list of product opinions provided? Was the list limited to advertisers for each individual publication?) Remember, one for primary purposes of these reader surveys is to sell "thank you for voting us top vendor in [insert local market]" ads. Also note that the published results from each only ranks the top three and provides absolutely no information about stats. Did number 1 beat out number 2 by one vote, 50, 300?. For the voting population in a category, what percent of readers picked the top ranked product, 20%, 50%, 70%?

Best Online (Legal) Research Vendor
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	WestLaw Next	LexisNexis
2	LexisNexis Total Litigator	Thomson Reuters
3	eLaw	Bloomberg
Best Small Firm/Solo Research Vendor
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	Westlaw Litigator	LexisNexis
2	Lexis Advance for Solos	Thomson Reuters
3	Google Scholar	Fastcase
Best Tables of Authority Software
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	LexisNexis	LexisNexis
2	WestCiteLink	Thomson Reuters
3	Shepard’s Full Authority	Fastcase
Best Case Management Software
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	SAGA Systems	Thomson Reuters ProLaw
2	Time Matters	Capital Novus
3	CaseMap	Symantic
Best Matter Management Systems
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	Serengeti Law	LexisNexis CaseMap
2	Corporation Service Co.	Serengeti
3	Bridgeway Software & CaseTrack	CaseTrack
Best Docketing & Calendaring Software
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	eLaw	LexisNexis Firm Manager
2	CompuLaw	Thomson Reuters ProLaw
3	Time Matters	Clearwell Systems
Best Time & Billing Software
Rank	NYLJ (9/2011)	Legal Times (11/2011)
1	Sage Timeslips	LexisNexis Time Matters
2	Time Matters	Thomson Reuters ELITE
3	SAGA Systems	Tab3
Note: Product identification listed as published in each publication. Caveat: I am dyslexic!

What can we say about the above survey results? For example...

Can we say that the presence of Bloomberg in the DC market finding and its absence in the NY market indicates that Bloomberg has better penetrated the DC market than the NY market? Don't think so unless the readers are including BGov and BNA and even then one must qualify that by recognizing the time differential between the two reader surveys.

Can we say that the failure of Wolters Kluwer to be listed in the top three of any relevant category means the Company is heading down the path of oblivion? Not without knowing the institutional demographics of readers who particpated in each survey and whether WK was listed as a voting choice.

Can we say that Fastcase has made significant inroads in the DC but not the NY market? (Like OMG, Google Scholar is ranked third in the NY best solo research service). Who knows because the methodology and findings of both surveys leave huge gapping information holes.

Is there anything we can say about the survey findings with some degree of certainty? I think there is. Law students are not being exposed to many of the above listed productivity-related services. Ditto for legal skills profs and law librarians. IMHO, case and matter "solutions" can and should be integrated into the legal curriculum to the greatest extent possible by becoming part of the law school "package" at no additional cost, assuming of course, vendors want to indoctrinate law students in their use for future licensing receptiveness.

Is there anything else that can be said with some degree of certainity? You bet. The "advertorial" value of reader surveys conducted by ALM sales and marketing department probably means that we will be seeing more local market surveys like the two covered in this post. [JH]