Comments on: Fastcase Review

By: Review of State Caselaw Sites Sees CaseMaker Overall Winner « Electronic Resource Review

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:36:42 +0000

[...] Fastcase Review by Laura Bergus, Social Media Law Student [...]

By: Rex Gradeless

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:29:51 +0000

re: “Unfortunately, the review either glosses over or misses entirely the real value of the two full-service legal information platforms (Lexis & West). This may be attributed to the fact that the blog is written by a law student with no law practice experience.”

Perhaps because this was a review of Fastcase and not a review of Lexis or West. Hmmmm?

By taking the time to comment on some “blog written by a law student with no law practice experience” you attack her experience while simultaneously feeling the need to respond. Irony?

Furthermore, the reality is that the consumer has been requesting that law firms (big and small) cut their costs. Lexis has felt the brunt of these requests in the recent economy. You are free to market your product with your bullet points but, until you find cost-saving ways to meet the consumer’s needs, you will still continue to lose ground to other services who can provide what the consumer wants.

Maybe some lawyers are not interested in being called a “serious legal researcher”, “savvy legal researcher”, “real legal researcher”, or a “comprehensive legal researcher” and, instead of punch-line marketing lingo, they actually focus on meeting the goals and expectations of their clients.

If, in meeting those goals, this requires lawyers to utilize new technologies and free resources they should.

By: Jason Grimes

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:16:38 +0000

FD: I am a LexisNexis employee.
Thank you for this review of Fastcase. It appears to have several forward-thinking and interesting features. Unfortunately, the review either glosses over or misses entirely the real value of the two full-service legal information platforms (Lexis & West). This may be attributed to the fact that the blog is written by a law student with no law practice experience. Off the top of my head, here are 4 big “misses”:
First, serious legal researchers rely heavily on Case Summaries and Headnotes. For some reason, the blog dismisses these vital tools (try research caselaw 40 hours in one week, as I have) as “treasured ‘editorial content.’”
Second, savvy legal researchers know how value-added it is to be able to start with Annotations to Statutes, a secondary source, law review or legal journal article, and link to leading cases from there.
Third, real legal researchers would not be caught dead without Shepard’s – the citator most used by judges & their clerks (KeyCite is usually adequate, though very difficult to navigate). Fastcase acknowledges this by providing Pay as you Go access to these – the only 2 actual citators available in America. Not only useful for ensuring that the case on which the user is relying is still good low, citators provide Procedural History, all citing references with analysis, citations from secondary sources, and the ability to limit the citing references by topic, jurisdiction, treatment, or key word phrase.
Fourth, comprehensive legal researchers also learn about the facts surrounding their cases – through news, public records, and the like.
With so much negativity in the blogosphere, it is inevitable that there would be a fair amount of negativity toward the dominant providers of legal information. But it is simply far less time-efficient — and thus client-friendly — to rely heavily on any of the low-cost or free services available.