Berring on BLaw: The transfer of research skills acquired in law school based on WEXIS next gen current gen's platforms to the BLaw platform at law firms will be easy.

Just a quick snip from Bob Berring's recent post on Slaw:

Bloomberg is going for the law firms, not the law students. Its search engine is snazzy. Now that WESTLAW and LEXIS have created interfaces that resemble Google, everyone might meet on the same ground in appealing to the new law student who begins to research. Skills imparted by the LEXIS and WESTLAW reps will transfer easily. The reality of the bottom line in law firms may mean that students will be asked to port the skills learned on the other systems to the newly christened BLAW.

Bloomberg is big enough, with smart enough management, to pull this off. If they do, it may spell the end for one of the old systems. Large law firms may stick with one of the old standbys and add in Bloomberg, or maybe, after enough credibility has been built up, maybe just Bloomberg.

For much more, see Bloomberg Law: The Wheel Turns.

The New Normal of the Very Similar User Experience. While there are some very substantial differences in the mystical ways WEXIS' new SEs work, once Classic Westlaw and Classic Lexis are killed, students will only be exposed to the coming status quo of WEXIS platforms that produce very similar user experiences. Berring may have a point that one unintended consequence is that WEXIS research skills training in law school (and elsewhere) will be readily transferable to BLaw in the real world.

Oops. Well, search engines do not sell online legal search services. Content does. Are we about to see some content-driven competiton in online legal search? If so, high quality editorial content will trump low quality editorial content if priced right.

I don't know if BLaw intends to put boots on the grounds of the law school campus for student training indoctrination purposes. Perhaps, the Company will let WEXIS school reps do that for them. [JH]