From LexisNexis Versus Westlaw - Update (Legal Research Plus)

The law school library respondents preferred Westlaw at a rate of nearly four-to-one, and seventy-eight percent of the federal court/government respondents preferred Westlaw. And, sixty percent of the law firm respondents preferred Westlaw over LexisNexis. Of the library communities of respondents, no single group preferred LexisNexis over Westlaw.

Paul Lomio and Erika Wayne over at Stanford Law School have completed a truly awe-inspiring work on differences between Lexis and Westlaw.

In reading the survey comments in the article, I’m struck by how age often seems to account for the difference between Lexis and Westlaw. One librarian writes that she simply “trust[s] Shepard’s more” because she’s “a dinosaur.” Others write about how older attorneys to all citation checking as “Shepardization” which younger attorneys have to understand means either Shepardize or KeyCite a case.

Some of the librarians trace the differences between Shepard’s and KeyCite back to how they work in paper form. I’m impressed by this knowledge because I don’t fully understand it and consider it to be somewhat arcane. In law school, I remember getting trained on the books, but of course when I got electronic access I never looked back. I imagine that distinguishing Westlaw from Lexis on the basis of how West book digests work is a legacy of aging librarians, God bless ‘em.

If it’s as I say, that differences in perception of Lexis versus Westlaw are on account of age, I think it’s because, if at one time they had substantial dissimilarities, they have evolved to the point of being nearly identical. Most recent graduates that I know consider them to be completely interchangeable, and will simply use whichever service their firm sticks in front of their face. In law school, if you told me which service was offering better sandwiches at their lunchtime talks and I could tell you which service I couldn’t live without.