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Have an externship with a district judge this summer (CD Cal if it makes a difference) and wondering if the USDC have WestlawNext or not. I am used to using WLNext for school but if the courts don't have it I'd like to start getting more used to classic WL before this summer.

Somewhat relatedly, does it matter that I prefer WL over Lexis?

As of last year, no. They give you logins for both WL and Lexis. They also use Wordperfect instead of Word. Enjoy.

blowhard wrote:They also use Wordperfect instead of Word. Enjoy.

Seriously? This is terrible news...

Anonymous User wrote:

blowhard wrote:They also use Wordperfect instead of Word. Enjoy.

Seriously? This is terrible news...

A few have changed over but by and large...yep. And, if you work in Word and convert there are weird formatting issues...for example the quotes are no longer smart quotes necessitating a find/replace.

blowhard wrote:As of last year, no. They give you logins for both WL and Lexis. They also use Wordperfect instead of Word. Enjoy.

Last year WLNext was just starting to gain in popularity though, right? I'm a 1L (OP) so I have had it since starting law school, but if I remember correctly some schools didn't get WLNext until the 2010-2011 school year. So maybe now that is more widespread the courts will have it?

blowhard wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

blowhard wrote:They also use Wordperfect instead of Word. Enjoy.

Seriously? This is terrible news...

A few have changed over but by and large...yep. And, if you work in Word and convert there are weird formatting issues...for example the quotes are no longer smart quotes necessitating a find/replace.

Yeah those formatting issues are a pain. Oh well. Hopefully my district has Word, but if not, then I will have to survive.

blowhard wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

blowhard wrote:They also use Wordperfect instead of Word. Enjoy.

Seriously? This is terrible news...

A few have changed over but by and large...yep. And, if you work in Word and convert there are weird formatting issues...for example the quotes are no longer smart quotes necessitating a find/replace.

Yeah those formatting issues are a pain. Oh well. Hopefully my district has Word, but if not, then I will have to survive.

Anonymous User wrote:

blowhard wrote:As of last year, no. They give you logins for both WL and Lexis. They also use Wordperfect instead of Word. Enjoy.

Last year WLNext was just starting to gain in popularity though, right? I'm a 1L (OP) so I have had it since starting law school, but if I remember correctly some schools didn't get WLNext until the 2010-2011 school year. So maybe now that is more widespread the courts will have it?

No, it was out and popular. Some schools were only teaching WL Next. According to the court's librarian, their contract didn't include it and it was going to require an entire renegotiation that they didn't have money to do in the near future.

blowhard wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

blowhard wrote:As of last year, no. They give you logins for both WL and Lexis. They also use Wordperfect instead of Word. Enjoy.

Last year WLNext was just starting to gain in popularity though, right? I'm a 1L (OP) so I have had it since starting law school, but if I remember correctly some schools didn't get WLNext until the 2010-2011 school year. So maybe now that is more widespread the courts will have it?

No, it was out and popular. Some schools were only teaching WL Next. According to the court's librarian, their contract didn't include it and it was going to require an entire renegotiation that they didn't have money to do in the near future.

Ah I see. Thanks for the info. Also, am I correct to assume based on your school you weren't in the same district as me (in the OP)?

Anonymous User wrote:

blowhard wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

blowhard wrote:As of last year, no. They give you logins for both WL and Lexis. They also use Wordperfect instead of Word. Enjoy.

Last year WLNext was just starting to gain in popularity though, right? I'm a 1L (OP) so I have had it since starting law school, but if I remember correctly some schools didn't get WLNext until the 2010-2011 school year. So maybe now that is more widespread the courts will have it?

No, it was out and popular. Some schools were only teaching WL Next. According to the court's librarian, their contract didn't include it and it was going to require an entire renegotiation that they didn't have money to do in the near future.

Ah I see. Thanks for the info. Also, am I correct to assume based on your school you weren't in the same district as me (in the OP)?

Nope, ED MI.

SDNY didn't have WestlawNext and were still using WordPerfect in 2011.

I think the original Westlaw is being phased out anyway. Not sure how long of a process that will be though.

goodolgil wrote:I think the original Westlaw is being phased out anyway. Not sure how long of a process that will be though.

I promise it's not before the entire federal government renegotiates their contract.

The DC I interned for last summer also didn't have WLNext but I just used my school account, not that big of a deal. Everything was done in Word Perfect but they had both Word and Word Perfect on all the computers.

WLNext is hilariously expensive; the feds wouldnt go for that.

YourCaptain wrote:WLNext is hilariously expensive; the feds wouldnt go for that.

And slow on a normal shared connection/old computer. And hard to target narrow databases. I got a LexisAdvance rep to admit to me that it's easier and cheap for experienced users to use the old version.

The federal courts won't be getting WestlawNext, at least not any time soon. Westlaw is not willing to reduce the price of Next, while Lexis is willing to convert to Advance at little or no additional cost.

This is the same reason the Court began using WordPerfect. Corel gave the feds a better licensing deal than Microsoft and, as lawyers became a larger percentage of its user base, was more willing to add legal-specific features.

Lincoln wrote:SDNY didn't have WestlawNext and were still using WordPerfect in 2011.

Same for EDNY

Lincoln wrote:SDNY didn't have WestlawNext and were still using WordPerfect in 2011.

Still no WestlawNext. But we do use both Word and WordPerfect.

beaverfuzz wrote:The federal courts won't be getting WestlawNext, at least not any time soon. Westlaw is not willing to reduce the price of Next, while Lexis is willing to convert to Advance at little or no additional cost.

This is the same reason the Court began using WordPerfect. Corel gave the feds a better licensing deal than Microsoft and, as lawyers became a larger percentage of its user base, was more willing to add legal-specific features.

Actually, the courts use Wordperfect because at the time they adopted it Corel was the leader and Word was unheard of. Lawyers liked the fact that Corel has true formatting and so you didn't end up with the weird intricacies of Word...although that went away about 3 versions ago. Since then, judges have refused to convert and several attempts to teach them Word have failed comically.

Two years ago my summer internship had WordPerfect only and no Next.