More Information on the ‘Quiet’ Launch of a New Legal Research Service by LexisNexis Parent RELX

Not too long ago, I reported right here on the “quiet” start of a new legal exploration support, Decisis, concentrating on bar associations and 1-2 lawyer law corporations. A single attention-grabbing aspect of the start was that nowhere on the company’s internet site did it mention that it is a subsidiary of RELX, the parent firm of LexisNexis.

I now have additional information and facts on the start of the service, based on my job interview yesterday with Jeffrey S. Pfeifer, who is main product or service officer for LexisNexis in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S., as very well as president of the firm that made Decisis, Legal InQuery Methods.

Pfeifer and I satisfied for the interview at the yearly meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries in Denver.

By way of recap, in my prior write-up, I wrote that the start appeared to be built to present bar associations with an substitute to Fastcase, following that company acquired Casemaker in 2021. For a long time, people two businesses experienced competed to earn the company of turning into the chosen member reward of condition and neighborhood bar associations.

With the acquisition, Fastcase became the sole authorized investigation provider for the bar associations of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and four-dozen metropolitan, county and specialty bar associations, for a whole selection of customers of much more than 1 million lawyers, out of an estimated 1.3 million lawyers in the country.

Pfeifer confirmed that Decisis is largely qualified at winning some of this bar association business enterprise. He also confirmed that, to date, two bars have signed on with Decisis, the Ohio Condition Bar Association (OSBA), which commenced providing it to users last October, and the Nebraska Condition Bar Association (NSBA), which began with the support on Might 2.

Pfeifer reported there was no intent to disguise the product’s connection to RELX and LexisNexis. He observed that the OSBA’s announcement that it would offer the services prominently mentioned each RELX and LexisNexis.

At the exact same time, Pfeifer mentioned, the builders of Decisis wanted to be obvious that it is a individual and distinctive product or service, made independently, with no direct relation to LexisNexis. The product was created and is getting bought and supported by a entirely independent crew, he stated.

“The Lexis brand indicates specified technical rewards and aspect capabilities. We wanted to be clear that this is not a Lexis product, it’s a standalone products.”

He also explained the item was not designed in reaction to the Fastcase acquisition of Casemaker, but experienced been in advancement just before that offer took location.

He said that bar associations experienced attained out to them stating that they wished an option to the authorized study items that had been obtainable to them. They desired a solution with a drastically simplified consumer working experience but with far more strong citator capabilities.

“So we saw an opportunity to construct a option,” he explained.

Relating to the citator, it is also entirely new and is not based in any way on LexisNexis’s Shepard’s Citations Provider, Pfeifer reported.

Unlike Shepard’s the citator in Decisis flags only negative solutions of situations.

Though the most important current market for the assistance is bar associations, Pfeifer reported the business is experimenting with e-commerce product sales to 1-2 lawyer corporations in states exactly where there is no bar connection. Legal professionals can get access to the provider for a month at a time.

Pfeifer could also experiment with offering variations of the support in other countries.

He explained the services as a standard analysis service with circumstances, statutes, administrative products and court docket procedures. He explained the exact content will differ by point out depending on the preferences of the bar association companions.

It does not contain any editorially produced or increased content material, such as headnotes or circumstance summaries.

“It is a pretty streamlined item working experience deliberately,” he stated. “It is meant to be self-experienced, so you can intuitively figure out the contents and a person can easily bounce in. It seems a great deal various than the Lexis product or service.”