Editor’s note: To follow up on several interesting online threads regarding the launch of WestlawNext, Anne Ellis also sent this text out as an e-mail to law librarian customers of West:
There has been a lot of conversation around WestlawNext these past couple weeks. Overall, we are pleased with the attention that WestlawNext has generated. When we went down this path, five years ago, we began with the question, “how can we make doing legal research and practicing law easier for our customers?” That is still our goal, and I’m happy that our work toward this end is something that you also find interesting.
Recent commentary from the librarian community has been mostly very thoughtful, as I would expect, and related to product strategy, rather than the posts of the past couple weeks that spoke mostly to features and functionality.
There are three points I’d like to address, where it seems speculation has been incorrect and has understandably caused concern:
*Rolling out WestlawNext to law firms
Our sales team will make trials of WestlawNext available to customers based on customer needs and priorities. Customers can learn more about WestlawNext by visiting westlawnext.com.
*Rolling out WestlawNext to law schools
In a previous note, I said that we would begin showing WestlawNext to law schools in a phased rollout of trial passwords, beginning with librarians and faculty this spring, and that we were making plans for launching WestlawNext to law students, with possible introduction as early as the Fall 2010 semester. It appears that it was understood by some that this meant that WestlawNext would be in all law schools by the fall of this year. To be clear, we are still determining timing for our rollout to law schools, and will work closely with law schools and the legal profession overall with the goal of helping them make better potential lawyers as we have always done.
*Questions relating to inexperienced researchers informing the search results
This is a really interesting discussion. I talked to the technology team behind WestlawNext, and student research was never to be part of the algorithm to inform search results. It was a very good question though, and I wish we had spoken to it in our original discussion about the artificial intelligence technology.
WestlawNext is an entirely new platform, and we worked hard in the days around launch to provide the right information to the right individuals. I think we all understand now that there will be questions popping up for awhile as people ask smart questions and as strategy and planning unfold.
We will continue to scan the blogs and listservs for comments that reveal gaps in the discussion, and I will try to speak to those points on a regular basis here on Legal Current. I invite your questions and comments and I appreciate being part of the discussion.
Anne Ellis
Senior Director, Librarian Relations
Thomson Reuters, Legal
Posted by Anne Ellis in:
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Nearly a week ago, I began raising specific questions about pricing and how West conducts its upgrade negotiations with solos and small firms on my blog at http://tinyurl.com/y8exfkv. I’ve also tweeted about this issue frequently in the past week, with almost all tweets containing the term “WestlawNext.” In fact, I’ve even explicilty invited West to comment (see http://tinyurl.com/y8wd357). To date, there has been no official response from West. I hope that West will respond to these issues promptly.
Anne,
Thank you for this response and clarification. Could you also speak to the issue of pricing? For example, in a comment on 3 Geeks, an anonymous Westlaw rep says costs will be “10 for each search, $5 for each find, and $2 for each KeyCite” and one of the bloggers invited to Egan for a preview says this is in line with what they were told.
However, other Westlaw reps have said that searches would be $60.
It seems that in an effort to create buzz around this new product, West has failed to adequetely prepare its sales force with the information they need to do their jobs.
I’m not sure if most librarians follow Legal Currents with the same regularity as the dicussion lists and blogs like 3 Geeks. Unless West (or the lists) have a policy against posting to discussion lists, it would be helpful if you could post links to further WestlawNext updates to Law Librarian, SLA’s Legal Division and AALL’s PLL lists.
Thank you,
Jill