Need Model Documents? Your Colleagues Weigh In on Finding Them Without Hours of Research
By Carol Barra
LexisNexis® Precedent Search, a new resource available on lexis.com, provides access to model documents drafted by top law firms and filed as exhibits to SEC filings*. It gives you the ability to search for sample documents, clauses or defined terms using drop-down selections for area of law/document category, type of agreement and additional parameters based on your research.
You can look for documents by a particular law firm, governing law jurisdiction, industry, company, etc. And LexisNexis Precedent Search filtering tools help further define and refine a search by categorizing results, so you can search more deeply within a single category of results.
Because results are full-text documents—so you can see your vital information in context—Precedent Search generates a table of links for each document so you navigate easily. (Also see the November/December 2008 LexisNexis Information Professional Update for more product information.)
This new source would have saved me hours of research time when I was working in a law firm, because this was just the type of research I conducted—and putting together Boolean searches was not always easy. (This would have also saved our clients money because I could have found precedent documents faster.) The flexibility that has been built in to this source for searching and filtering is very impressive. Pull-down choices let you select from pre-formatted document, clause and defined terms. Or choose to search all available exhibits for a type of agreement, clause or defined term that is not included in the pull-down selection.
I have been showing this new source to librarians I work with since it was released on lexis.com late last year, and our colleagues are impressed with the ease of use. I want to share some of the feedback I have received.
One librarian recently said using Precedent Search could have saved him hours of research time. He wanted to know where I was a couple of weeks before when, if he had used this source, it would have saved him a lot of time filling a research request. It would have also saved the client a lot of money. He liked how easy it was to find a specific type of agreement and then to use the filtering choices to narrow the results by specific agreement name, language within the agreement and governing law jurisdiction.
This same librarian had also struggled finding a description surrounding a clause because there were so many results for the source he used. Granted, if he had used Precedent Search, he would have noticed there is no limit to the number of results returned (i.e., no 3,000 limit). While this might seem overwhelming initially, with the filtering and FOCUS™ capability provided, it is easy to refine results down to a manageable number very quickly.
My customer was also impressed with the TOC generated for each document viewed. He noted it’s much easier to navigate through long agreements. He will definitely use this new source, he added.
Another librarian said LexisNexis Precedent Search is the easiest search resource she has access to for searching SEC exhibits for precedent, just due to the flexibility. She said she likes not being totally locked in to using the suggested types of documents, clauses and defined terms. She liked the suggestions if they met her needs; however, she said, often the pre-formatted suggestions don’t quite fit her research request. She was impressed with the filtering and FOCUS capability and how easy it was to add and remove filter choices. She was also impressed with the speed for processing her search.
Both librarians were impressed with the ability to filter results and to add FOCUS terms so easily from their results. They were also pleased with the reasonable cost of searching. They both indicated that this would be a very cost-effective way to search for precedent documents filed as SEC exhibits.
If you have not had a chance to try the new Precedent Search source at lexis.com, you can find it by selecting the TRANSACTIONAL ADVISOR tab. Look for Drafting Tools. As always, your LexisNexis Librarian Relations Consultant will be happy to review this resource with you.
*LexisNexis Precedent Search may not be available to government subscribers and is not available to law school subscribers.
