Surprised? Actually, some Web sites (see attachment below)—both general and legal—can get your research off to a good start and can even be a means to accomplish certain kinds of research tasks. With that said, thorough research calls for a comprehensive solution—which the LexisNexis^® services provide.

 

When making a decision about where to go for a particular research task, keep these factors in mind:

 

·        Generally, it’s free

·        Many, varied resources

·        It’s usually free

·        No-brainer searching—no need to know search logic or source selection

·        Did we mention that, for the most part, it’s free?

 

·        Huge number of sites can mean that the resources you need are scattered among many different sites, which may mean multiple searches in multiple locations, taking more time

·        Necessity of verifying the reliability of Internet resources

·        Search engine placement issues can skew what you see

·        Lacking in ability to limit or refine results—in some cases, you’d be reviewing thousands of hits to find relevant information, which can rack up serious research charges for your client

·        Lacking in editorial enhancements, which can provide valuable insight

·        No one to call when you’re having trouble finding what you need

 

·        More than five billion documents from more than 40,000 sources—case law, codes, legislation, secondary law, news, public records, business information, etc.—all in one place

·        The ability to search group sources and even create your own group sources

·        Enhancements such as the Shepard’s^® Citations Service, LexisNexis^® headnotes and case summaries in case law that provide valuable insight

·        The ability to access your recent search results—past 24 hours—without re-running your search and to re-run any search from the past 30 days by just looking through the Recent Results list (within History) and clicking

·        Flexible alerting features that let you monitor:

-        LexisNexis search results within any sources

-        Subsequent decisions, additional citing references, or adjustments to editorial treatments that affect your Shepard’s reports and citing authorities’ treatments

-        New activity in existing cases of interest to you and events in other cases that may impact your practice areas or your clients with the CourtLink^® Alert service

·        Help with your research questions from a real, live human being—at no additional charge

 

So it might be fine to run a quick Internet search to find a particular case, bill, statute, regulation, or form, for example. (Don’t expect valuable editorial enhancements, though.) But when you’re faced with a more involved task, like finding out how the courts in a particular Circuit have handled the issue of whether a company’s Web site can serve as the basis for subjecting it to personal jurisdiction in a particular place, you need to turn to the LexisNexis services for a comprehensive research solution.

 

And when you use the LexisNexis services efficiently (see “Cost-Effective Research on www.lexis.com”), you can actually keep costs down while improving the quality of your results—in terms of both comprehensiveness and accuracy—and have the partners think you’re on top of your game!