The Robb Report

Just one law student’s opinion. I’ll continue to update this as more differences occur to me.

LexisNexis

+1 Ability to request documents in single-column. I find this much more legible for fast reading and annotation.

+1 Ability to request documents with search terms highlighted. A single-column, keyword-highlighted pdf is awesome for fast reading and research.

+1 The online legal dictionary is accessible from the front page, and gives results with one click.

-1 Doesn’t work with Firefox (latest version, Mac.) So I use Safari, which seems to do fine.

+1 The research log (”history”) is much easier to use than Westlaw’s (”research trail”). One example: I did research in both systems an hour ago. I then logged out of both. Now I’m back online, and I log into both systems. I wanted to see the most recent items I had pulled up. In Westlaw, this required four mouse clicks and screens to wait for. In LexisNexis, this required one.

Westlaw

-1 Annoying single-threaded retrieval and notification system. Click a button too soon, and you get the dialog window, “Please wait while Westlaw completes the current task [Ok]”

-1 Westlaw has Black’s Law Dictionary online. This would be a huge plus. Except that the user interface renders it unusable. Searching for a single term can require several forwards and backwards clicks and scrolling through multiple pages searching in vain for a correct sub-entry.

+1 Can enter citations without spaces or punctuation. This is pretty convenient. LexisNexis’s input is a bit pickier.