Legal giants go head-to-head
Jinfo Blog

By Tim Buckley Owen

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Seldom can two such heavyweight competitors have gone head-to-head so spectacularly.

In virtually simultaneous announcements, LexisNexis has launched Lexis Legal Intelligence, which it bills as 'an intuitive knowledge driven support system for lawyers', and Westlaw has caught the moment of regulatory angst nicely with its Securities-UK Centre, which offers fully searchable listings from the Financial Services Authority plus relevant legislation and guidance. Both vendors are at pains to emphasise how their new offerings reflect the way their customers work.

Going for the potentially highly lucrative professional support lawyer market, Lexis Legal Intelligence includes a brand new know-how product called Lexis PSL, as well as its Lexis Learning training package and Lexis Applications, a full range of drafting, compliance and practice automation tools (http://digbig.com/4ynwq).

Compliance is also at the heart of Westlaw's new product, whose navigation, it claims, is built upon a specialized search taxonomy that reflects the 'unique language of the business law professional'. Part of its global Westlaw Business platform, Securities-UK joins similar centres already available for the United States and Canada, and the package also includes other transactional and legal guidance plus practice tools (http://digbig.com/4ynwp).

It inevitably leads one to ponder how all this might squeeze the third major player, the Practical Law Company (http://www.practicallaw.com). In fact Charles Christian wonders in an Orange Rag blog posting (http://theorangerag.blogharbor.com/) why LexisNexis hasn’t just tried to buy PLC instead of directly challenging it in the pre-packaged knowledge management field.

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