Alternatives to Lexis & Westlaw

The LLSDC Education Committee held a program on low-cost alternatives to Lexis and Westlaw on Thursday, December 10. Hosted at Morgan, Lewis, and Bockius, the program began with Roger Skalbeck and Todd Venie, both librarians at Georgetown, presenting information they have collected about four primary law databases: Fastcase, Casemaker, Loislaw, and VersusLaw. They then shared some conclusions they had reached about the databases and their individual strengths and weaknesses.

The second half of the program was a discussion of whether these databases could actually be used to lower research costs at local firms. Participants discussed their experiences in using these databases, as well as reasons for not yet subscribing to them. The discussion also addressed how these databases compare to sources of free legal information on the Web, especially the case law material that was recently added to Google Scholar.  

The Education Committee provides educational programs, speakers, seminars and classes useful to the membership. If you have a program or topic to suggest, please contact Todd Venie.