Part One: Comparison Questions

Q: What do you and West and Lexis have in common?
A: We all provide access to high quality, primary and secondary legal research and reference materials. We all provide unlimited access to tech and reference attorney support. We all publish software.

Q: What do they do that you don't do?
A: In an ideal world, all legal research and reference knowledge bases would be available to all participants in the legal profession on an unfettered basis from anywhere in the world. Then, and only then, would all participants be playing on a level surface. But that is not how the system works. Rather, two large legal publishers offer the finest collection of legal research and reference materials anywhere, but, in our opinion, they exercise too much control over the marketplace which comes through in the form of outrageous pricing schemes. The upshot is that for most of us, the vastness of these premium wine resources exist in name only. If you are a law student you get everything and pay nothing; unless of course you include the tuition paid to finance your training on these premium tools so that upon graduation you can begin making installment payments on your cradle-to-the-grave legal research plan. If you are a judge or you clerk for a judge, the governmental instrumentality that employs you may well pay little or nothing for access to these vast resources. If you are a sole practitioner, you probably can’t justify anything more than the tiny practice-area or jurisdiction related slice served up by your local rep. Should you stray outside your plan you may be rewarded for your loyalty, and even surprised, by unwieldy transaction charges that your client may or may not be able or willing to pay. If you are in a silk-stocking environment with Fortune 500 clients to underwrite significant, flat-rate contracts, you may well enjoy unfettered access to nearly everything that is available. If you are in a small or medium private practice, you are still in a pick-and-choose-mode with regard to the premium wine resources you choose to subscribe to. Accordingly, you operate at a distinct disadvantage if your opponent is, for example, the U.S. Department of Justice or a large, blue-chip firm. As a result of their superior position in the marketplace, the big two compusearchers all but unilaterally determine who will, and who will not, be able to provide their clients with the best possible legal research in the shortest amount of time. For all of the above reasons and otherwise, for too many, legal research and reference resources are viewed as a necessary evil, when they should be embraced as the place to find answers that will lead to the prevention or prompt resolution of cases and controversies. Their cases are enhanced with hyperlinked cites and annotations. Ours are not. They are a good resource for Federal district court case law and Federal bankruptcy case law. We are not yet there. However, our Cases Menu, does make it easy to track and quickref cases as they are published online to the various web sites owned and controlled by the Federal Judicial Center and various governmental instrumentalities at the state level.

Q: What do you do that they don't do?
A: With TheLaw.net everyone gets everything we have, over the same period of time and at the same price. A flat-rate, affordable subscription TheLaw.net, is easy to factor in to any business plan. In addition to providing unfettered access to a great case law database, TheLaw.net is focused on leveraging free-access, web based documents and databases on behalf of the online law office by building access to this information into the interface of a custom browser. This is a simple tool that anyone can understand, regardless of their I.L.Q. (Information Literacy Quotient). With TheLaw.net, all you need is a mouse; not a roomful of propellerheads.
     In its raw form, the Internet is broken. TheLaw.net is the next natural step in making diffuse web-based documents and databases usable for all. TheLaw.net is the first software publisher to introduce a best-practices software solution for getting around online. Pop up most any statute, rule or regulation in seconds. Access full-text law reviews and journals. Check the news. Drill down to an executive agency database. Track pending legislation. Refresh your memory with our practice area helpers. Before marching into court tomorrow, it might be wise to browse Judge Jones’ homepage where she publishes her top-five pet peeves.
     The vast amount of critical, Internet-only resources that they miss or are not interested in, would fill your hard-drive. Their interest in the Internet is primarily limited to having you on their site paying through the nose for legal research. Our interest in the Internet is having you on other sites, so that you only have to use them when you can’t otherwise quickly find the answer with us.
     Data on the Internet relevant to the practice of law falls into two bins. First, is the information that you know is available, but you don’t use it because you don’t have a quick way to access it. Second, is the information that you don’t know about, but would be using if you could access it quickly and easily. TheLaw.net delivers the law and the Internet to your desktop so that you have a fast, organized way to get to all the information you should be using, when you need it, whether you realized it was there or not.

Q: Who uses your software?
A: TheLaw.net has subscribers nationwide and around the world in small, medium and large, complex environments. Our users are attorneys in private practice, attorneys in the general counsel’s office of some of the world’s most revered corporations, paralegals and law librarians. In a recent survey of our users, 91% agreed to act as references if needed, 98% gave TheLaw.net a favorable rating, and 95% of our users stay with us past the thirty day money back guarantee period. We believe these numbers speak well of our product and service and we look forward to hopefully being able to add you to our growing list of satisfied subscribers.

Q: How long have you been in business and can you provide references?
A: This project just entered its third calendar year. TheLaw.net Corporation is the nation’s fastest growing web-based legal research and reference software publisher. Click here if you would like to see what some of our subscribers have to say about their experience using our software solution. If you would like specific, individualized references from subscribers in your practice area, jurisdiction or firm size, call toll free 1.877.452.9638, or drop us an email.

Part Two: Search Questions

Q: Can I search multiple jurisdictions simultaneously?
A: Yes. You can isolate the United States Supreme Court only. You can isolate all or any combination of the Federal Circuits and the United States Supreme Court. You can isolate a single Federal circuit and search any combination of the United States Supreme Court, the primary Federal circuit, and the state supreme courts and intermediate level appellate courts within that individual circuit’s primary jurisdiction. You can isolate all or any combination of state supreme courts and intermediate level appellate courts. For a complete list of jurisdictions indexed in the case law database, click here. (This page may take a few seconds to load.)

Q: What search terms can I use?
A: You can perform natural language searches, use boolean AND, OR, NOT terms, perform so-called “within” or “near” searches and do truncation or nesting. For a complete list of search terms click here. To see our online manual, click here.

Q: Can I perform “field searches” in the case law database by citation or otherwise.
A: Yes. You can perform eight distinct field searches with TheLaw.net. You can search by court, party, counsel, docket number, parallel citation, issuance date, judicial panel name or author of the opinion.

Q: Can I check the history of a citation, statute, rule or regulation?
A: This is very easy to do. We do not have attorneys writing annotations, so you will not see any little red and yellow arrows telling you whether the case has been followed or distinguished. However, the core checking function of being able to quickly pop-up a list of potentially helpful cases is extremely easy with TheLaw.net. It is also worth keeping in mind that your results will be limited by the existing cases in our database. Click here for a detailed "how to" explanation with graphics.

Q: How are cases displayed and how are results ranked?
A: Cases are displayed 8-1/2 x 11, double space, single column, Times New Roman, 12 pt. However, it is very easy to copy all or any part of the text. Thereafter, you could quickly reformat into two columns, Arial, 10 pt. It is also very easy to save the text of a case to your hard disk. You can also excise any portion of a case for pasting into your word processor or an email. When you perform a search, an analysis of the database is executed using a combination of the following indicators: (1) Breadth of Match: documents containing more of the various query terms are weighted more relevant; (2) Inverse Document Frequency: documents containing terms which occur less frequently in the entire database are weighted more relevant; (3) Frequency: documents with a higher occurrence of a query term are weighted more relevant; (4) Density: the comparable length of retrieved documents is calculated to apply a higher relevancy weight. In this analysis, stop words are ignored. This reduces the time spent processing your search and prevents an artificial boost of relevance to what are actually irrelevant documents, since "the" would probably retrieve every record in a database. Researchers receive several benefits from Relevance Ranking. With the ease of natural language queries and the assistance of Relevance Ranking, you will find the most relevant documents in the shortest period of time. And, as you read down the Hit List, once you determine the documents are getting less applicable, you can stop reading results of this search because you know you have already viewed the most relevant documents. Finally…you don't have to be a computer expert who can compose the most complex of queries in order to find valuable information.


Part Three: Support Questions

Q: Do you provide training?
A: Yes. Training is done telephonically and can be done on an individualized basis or collectively with your workgroup or team. There is never a charge for consultation with TheLaw.net in this regard. That said, TheLaw.net is very easy to use and leverages skills that most people already have. Most lawyers have at least some exposure to electronic case law research. For non-case law resources all you need to know is how to shuttle through menus and click a mouse. It couldn’t be easier. TheLaw.net eliminates the Information Literacy Gap that exists in many environments these days.

Q: Do you provide reference attorney support?
A: Yes. Every subscription includes unlimited reference attorney support should you need assistance fashioning a query or if you have a specific question about the location or placement of a particular resource. We love helping our clients. In fact, TheLaw.net owes much of its success to users’ suggestions. In a very real sense, TheLaw.net is an organic software solution that lives and breathes; a solution that reflects not only our best thinking, but also the collective best thinking of our subscribers around the world.

Q: What if we need technical support?
A: No problem. TheLaw.net is deployed successfully in some of the complex environments in the world. There is never a charge for tech support. That said, installation and aftercare of TheLaw.net is very simple and straightforward.

Q: Is your software easy to use?
A: Yes. If you have had experience performing electronic case law research and you know how to operate a web browser, you already know everything you need to know to be successful using TheLaw.net. You know you’ve subscribed to a well-designed piece of software when you can simply look at it and understand immediately how to use it. That’s TheLaw.net. When we started our company we understood that out users would not want to devote a lot of time getting up-to-speed. We built TheLaw.net around skills that we know most users have already mastered.

Q: How often do you update and how are updates provided?
A: There are two batches of data that require ongoing updating and maintenance: the case law database and the drop down menus. The case law database is updated four times a day and does not implicate the end user. The drop down menus which provide nearly 80,000 detailed pathfinders to web based documents and databases, require ongoing updates and maintenance. When support staff is not assisting clients they are washing out old, irrelevant resources and searching for, evaluating, testing and mapping to new, authoritative resources and re-mapping to existing resources that may have moved or restructured their directories. Drop-down menu updates are provided approximately 50 times a year. The drop down menu system is a single, encrypted file that resides on your hard drive. The methodology used for updating your drop down menu system is similar to methods used when updating your anti-virus files. This process takes a couple of minutes and if you update your drop down menu system once a month at your discretion, you should be satisfied. This process could easily be automated. However, that would require reading your hard drive and in a market space where security, privacy and confidentiality are so important, it has always been our practice to leave it to our subscribers to determine precisely when updates should be executed.


Part Four: Content Questions

Q: What jurisdictions are covered in the case law database?
A: TheLaw.net delivers the judicial opinions from 176 Federal and state appellate jurisdictions to your desktop. Federal cases include the United States Supreme Court and all thirteen Federal Circuits. State cases include judicial opinions from all 50 state supreme courts, together with most all of the intermediate level appellate courts to the extent they exist in the states. For more detailed information regarding jurisdictions covered proceed to: http://www.thelaw.net/compare.htm and http://www.thelaw.net/caselawgrid.htm