At the CRIV/Vendor Roundtable at the AALL Annual Meeting on Sunday, a member asked the vendors to comment on their policies regarding providing user information to government agencies. In response to that question, Lexis has provided the following statement:

LexisNexis (Legal and Risk Solutions) does not sell subscriber user information collected from LexisNexis Legal and Professional customers to ICE or any other government agencies.

1.  Present on the Call – Kate Hagan, AALL Executive Director; Carolyn Bach, Sr. Manager Librarian Relations; Drew Jones, Product Planning Manager; Teresa Harmon, Sr. Director of Product Planning; Jim Gernert, CRIV Chair.
2. New Lexis Products of Interest
   1. Lexis Advance
      1. Lexis has added a number of enhancements to users’ ability to search News files, including options for filtering searches by negative news either pre or post search; group files for more refined results;; and language filters that let the searcher refine by language.
      2. International Primary Law sources have been added to Lexis Advance so that all of the international primary content that was available on Lexis.com is now available on Lexis Advance, including sources from the EU, Canada, and Malaysia.
      3. In 2018, Patent Content on Lexis Advance will be powered by Total Patent One, and includes full diagrams and visual capabilities and a more robust gateway. However, there is still additional content in Total Patent One that is not included in Lexis Advance .
      4. Full text alerts and custom pages will be available on Lexis Advance in early 2018. Links to custom pages will be available on the main screen of Lexis Advance, and can be shared with other Lexis users in your organization.
   2. Lexis Practice Advisor has been redesigned to enhance the user experience with new navigation by Practice Area, Jurisdiction and Content Type. It aligns with the practitioner’s workflow with expanded practical guidance content organized along a navigable task tree. Moreover, Practice Advisor now includes a deal document Transactions Search, powered by Intelligize. Lexis Practice Advisor will further be expanding their practice area focus with the addition of Federal Civil Practice and Antitrust in Q1 2018, followed by Private Equity and more planned for the 2nd half of 2018.
   3. AI and Analytics
      1. Ravel and Lex Machina – There is enhanced integration of Lex Machina in to Lexis Advance that include analytics for judges law firms and attorneys, accessible when viewing a case; deeper analytics are available via a link for Lex Machnia subscribers ;Ravel Law integration will take place throughout 2018.   Users should start to see content from Ravel in Lexis Advance by the end of Q1 2018, and Case Law Visualization, information on judges, and additional analytics will be added throughout 2018. Some of the information will be available with an existing Lexis Advance subscription, while the analytics may require a separate subscription.
      2. Lexis Answers – this service leverages AI to deliver on-point answers and results in five areas – Definitions, Elements of a Claim, Doctrines, Standards of Review, and Burden of Proof; Statute of Limitations and Judges will be added to the service in Q1 2018; Lexis Answers is available across multiple jurisdictions.
3. Vendor Advocacy Issues
   1. Some law firm librarians reported that they were not able to purchase Lexis print and ancillary online products if they opted not to renew their Lexis Advance subscriptions. This issue had been raised with Carolyn earlier and a response was provided by Lexis’ management, as follows:

“Keep in mind that Lexis has been selling integrated products as a package with Online for many years with notable examples such as Lexis Search Advantage, Lexis for Microsoft Office, Verdict and Settlement Analyzer, Profile Suite, LN Publisher, and Digital Library.  As we retire Lexis.com this year, and upgrade users to Lexis Advance, we will more fully leverage our platform that consolidates all content and tools to one ecosystem.  This  affords considerable benefits to users including being able to navigate seamlessly between products, have answer sets surfaced across products, and gain access into the central Online content repository, that formerly would have been restricted by product.   

Our pricing is different in each market and varies depending on which products and solutions work best for each customer. Accordingly, we sit down with customers and explain the pricing for their firm, including what products are sold together and which are sold separately.  If any of your readers want to discuss, we are happy to do so directly with them.”

It was felt by AALL/CRIV that the response didn’t squarely address the questions that were asked.  Carolyn advised she did not have additional information, and Jim and Kate asked her to go back to Lexis’ management and try to get answers to these specific questions:

1. 1. 1. Will Lexis confirm that they are refusing to sell print and ancillary online products to customers who do not maintain their subscriptions to Lexis Advance?
      2. If so, what is the rationale behind the policy?
      3. What markets is this policy being applied in?
      4. Are there plans to expand the policy to additional markets?
      5. What are the parameters of the policy (i.e., which Lexis products does it apply to)?
   2. Pricing of Errata? Does LexisNexis have a policy on the pricing of Errata for their print titles (is it normally provided free of charge)?  : LexisNexis does not charge for Erratas for their publications.

4.  Sunset date for Lexis.com – Lexis confirmed that the Lexis.com platform is on schedule to end service in all markets at the end of 2017.

There being no further business, the call was adjourned at 4:40 p.m.

Note: For a brief promotional period, users will have all patent authorities available in Total Patent One. After the promotional period, users will be limited to the same patent authorities they had access to in lexis.com

Bloomberg BNA announced that they would cease publication of the Government Employee Relations Report with the November 14, 2017 issue.   The Report was a weekly publication that BNA has published since 1963.  According to Bloomberg BNA, some coverage of government employee labor issues will be included in the Labor Relations Week newsletter.  No further information was provided on the reason for the decision to end publication of the Government Employee Relations Report.

1.  Introductions – Jim Gernert, CRIV Vice Chair and Vendor Liaison; Kate Hagan, AALL Executive Director; Carolyn Bach – LexisNexis Librarian Relations Manager; Maura Donovan – LexisNexis VP of Marketing, Law Schools/Large Law firms; Drew Jones – LexisNexis Segment manager, Law Schools and Large Law Firms.
2. New Lexis Products of Interest :
   1. Ravel Law – This is LexisNexis’ most recent acquisition. It is primarily a legal analytics tool, and strengthens LN’s position in this area. LexisNexis is focused on tools to help with analysis of information. Ravel Law allows the user to uncover insights in to how a case could be decided. It adds judicial analytics to litigation analytics. It provides information on a judge’s track record, and allows litigators to make judgment calls on how to proceed with their cases. Ravel’s judge analytics will be made available within Lexis’ Litigation Profile Suite suite as an add-on. Ravel also provides a caselaw visualization tool that will be incorporated in to Lexis Advance. Lexis intends to honor the commitment to make the caselaw from Harvard available for free, although the exact nature of the access hasn’t been decided as yet.
   2. Lexis Answers – This is the first visible harnessing of machine learning on the Lexis Advance platform, and is available now. Essentially, if the user starts typing in the search box, sample queries will appear. Many of the more common questions will result in an answer card, which will have a brief reply to the query from a source within the database.
   3. Wagstaffe Group Practice Guide: Federal Civil Procedure Before Trial – this three-volume title by James Wagstaffe was just added to Lexis Advance. It is the first Lexis product to include embedded videos, and it also includes a current awareness component.
   4. Lex Machina – provides firm analytics as well as judicial analytics in select practice areas. Commercial Bankruptcy and Employment Law are two recent practice areas now supported by Lex Machina.
   5. Shepards’ – The Shepards’ Citation service has added a new feature called “Reason for Signal.” It takes the researcher quickly to the language a Shepard’s editor has determined has the most impact on the case treatment. At present the “Reason for Signal” service is available for cases post-2003, but the target is to make it available for all cases by end of year.
   6. Additional enhancements include an International Tab in Explore Content; enhanced table of contents display; and News research now features popular group source files, and new sources from 150+ countries. A language filter and negative news filter are coming in August.
   7. Users will be able to create custom pages in Lexis Advance by the end of the 3^rd quarter of this year.
   8. Kate asked if SSRN representatives would be at the AALL Annual Meeting? After checking, we are unable to identify any SSRN representatives planning to attend the conference.
3.  Vendor Advocacy Issues (none at this point)
4. Questions – Sunset date for Lexis.com – All legal markets in the US will be retiring Lexis.com at the end of the year.  Lexis.com may continue to be available internationally.
5. Lexis sponsored activities at AALL Annual Meeting in Austin.
   1. Law 360 event for their subscribers
   2. Reed Tech – event
   3. Ravel Law
   4. Photo booth – feed a digital mosaic

The CRIV Vendor Roundtable will take place at the AALL Annual Meeting this Sunday, July 16th, from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. in the Hilton Governor’s Ballroom Salon A.  Topics to be discussed include preservation and permanent/perpetual access.  There will also be an open Question & Answer session at the end of the meeting.  Please join us!