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Points aside, what are the non cosmetic differences between lexis and westlaw.

Truth is, there aren't many. It's just a matter of preference....and swag.

Perhaps this is a matter of personal preference also, but I liked Shepard's (Lexis) better than Keycite (Westlaw).

But other than that: Lexis offers better things for your points. (Redeemable for books at amazon, for example.)

um... Lexis doesn't have CJS... (a legal encyclopedia) but it Does have AmJur (which is basically the same thing, both are owned by west)... They both have different state by state encyclopedia based on which published the things... Lexis has a better index style search... Lexis has a cooler name?

Thats all I can think of off the top of my head

West's navigation is driven by unavoidable popups that appear to do random things if you live and die by tabs. It makes opening multiple links from the same page impossible as West directs them all to the same popup tab, which then does mysterious things to the original tab (such as reloading it and changing the focus to an entirely different window) when you close the popup window.

Does West have an equivalent to Lexis' "get and print," where you can retrieve a whole batch of cases at once? I tried to do something similar with regard to multiple sections of a state's statutes but the system just crapped on me.

On the other hand, Lexis is incredibly slow at my school and the server seems to be down or unresponsive fairly often. Ironically, I also like West's Keycite more, as it seems to give a better indication of the citing case's probable value.

We've gotten freebies at every Westlaw class.

That's pretty much it.

I'm digging Lexis, I find it much more intuitive. But they've stiffed me on some points. I did the stupid Shepardizing tutorial and everything.

The points seem nearly worthless - especially for the value they can expect to collect from you if they actually get you to commit to their product.

lexis has some good shit, and the tutorials are things that will come in handy in the future anyway, it's not like you are learning useless stuff

underdawg wrote:lexis has some good shit, and the tutorials are things that will come in handy in the future anyway, it's not like you are learning useless stuff

Yeah for real, all my points are going towards Xbox games.

I hate the way the Lexis printouts have a cover page telling you what your search terms were, but not the name of the document/case name.

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bigben wrote:It seems like a lot of people go after the rewards points. This is one of those things that for some reason boggles the shit out of my mind. Break it down--what are you earning for doing extra things to earn points. Like 5 bucks an hour max? Since time is such a precious commodity in law school, I refuse to spend one second even learning what the rewards are or how the points work.

On the other hand, no one really thinks about it like that. Maybe I just resist for the sake of resisting.

Think about it this way: instead of daydreaming in class for 3 minutes a day, you could earn points.

You are welcome to resist for whatever reason you like or no reason at all, but earning points isn't nearly so much of a waste of time (and often forces you to learn to use the service to perform better legal research) that I don't find your time argument credible.

bigben wrote: Since time is such a precious commodity in law school, I refuse to spend one second even learning what the rewards are or how the points work.

On the other hand, no one really thinks about it like that. Maybe I just resist for the sake of resisting.

The system is rather simple; you get points for research and completing tutorials and then you redeem them for whatever. If time is such a precious commodity to you it would be in your best interest to learn to use the research tools properly. Ultimately, the guy who can run a good terms and connectors search and use Focus and Shepard's properly is going to save a lot more time on their memo than the guy who scrolls through 3000 pages worth of irrelevant hits off a basic search.

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I paid only a tiny bit of attention to the tutorials, but even that was beneficial when it came time to try to research efficiently (e.g. when the client is paying for research and its your job to minimize that expense).

So true. That little tidbit about using a very broad search term and then honing in using Locate has literally saved my firm's clients thousands of dollars. It's like $250 for each search! And that's a simple search, let alone something more specialized.

too bad lexis got rid of "fact or fiction" and the daily research points. earning points is a lot tougher than it was last year.

You know I racked up all those westlaw points for THREE years and then forgot to cash 'em in until it was too late.

I prefer WestLaw. I find it easier to navigate, plus my legal writing professor focuses on it, so perhaps that gives me a bias. I do think the case summaries on Lexis are better (more detail), however.

ok fuck lexis

i can never remember my password, because the thing refuses to accept 90% of the passwords i make. who would hax0r my lexis account anyway? and when i forget my password, they just can't e-mail it to me, they have to e-mail a temp one, which i have to change, and there i am again, trying to come up with a password good enough for lexis

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Corsair wrote:

underdawg wrote:who would hax0r my lexis account anyway?

Do you realize how much Lexis/West cost to use? Getting access to some law student's password would be worth thousands and thousands of dollars to a cash strapped solo.

Hmmm...

why is lexis so anal about my password and west not? why the hell aren't "holyfield" and "cocacola" acceptable passwords?! fuck lexis

underdawg wrote:why is lexis so anal about my password and west not? why the hell aren't "holyfield" and "cocacola" acceptable passwords?! fuck lexis

because everytime i'm trying to hack into someone's lexis account "holyfield" and "cocacola" are my first two guesses.