[blindLaw] Point of having Westlaw and/or LexusNexus

[Michal Nowicki]

Thomas,

Google and other popular free search engines are no match for a dedicated
legal database like Westlaw or LexisNexis, especially for case law research.
These databases are very useful - and sometimes essential - for verifying
whether a particular court decision is still good law; this obviously cannot
be done from the text of a court opinion alone. Additionally, legal
databases offer very advanced searching and results filtering and sorting
functionalities you won't find elsewhere. Furthermore, Westlaw and
LexisNexis both offer robust editorial annotations for statutes,
regulations, and other primary sources. Those are just a few tremendous
advantages of these legal databases that make the cost worthwhile for many
practitioners.

For attorneys who work on a tight budget, however, there are several cheaper
alternatives, among them Casetext, Fastcase, and Casemaker (which apparently
has recently merged with Fastcase). Most state bar associations offer
complementary access to one of these alternative databases to their members.
These cheaper alternatives do not offer all the benefits of Westlaw or
LexisNexis, but are still much more powerful than free online searches.

Hope this helps.

Michal

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindLaw <blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Thomas Dukeman via
BlindLaw
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2022 7:52 AM
To: 'Blind Law Mailing List' <BlindLaw at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Thomas Dukeman <ThomasDukeman at outlook.com>
Subject: [blindLaw] Point of having Westlaw and/or LexusNexus

Hello fellow legal beagles!

I was wondering what the point of having those two legal databases was? I
mean is there any information in those databases I couldn't get access to
any other way or that it is just a more efficient way to find law related
information then just trying to look it up on your own with google? I know
that many law firms through out the US at least use them but that the
license for it can be pretty expensive to keep up sometimes so I was just
trying to understand if the whole point of using something expensive was
because it is the only way to get important information or that is just what
we have gotten used to using?

Thanks for your time in advance,
Tom

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