Category Archives for "Legal Information Trends"

Collaboration – What This Means for the Law Library Today

By Michael Feit | Associations , Legal Information Trends , Librarians , Modern Law Library

A key component of the Modern Law Library is moving outside the realm of Legal Research Support. Law firms have always depended on library and information professionals to support the research needs of their lawyers. While this is still true, great success now depends on the Library taking a more active role in their organization to help support the day to day business of law. See a need, fill a need.

Whether embedded in a practice group to assist attorney teams or partnering with client development to support business development and increase revenue streams, the Modern Library plays a vital role. No one size fits all when it comes to organizational structure.

Begin by assessing your organization and consider who you might target with your message of providing support. If you are going to propose new roles, talk to the involved departments. Understand what they do, their needs and their workflow. How might you assist them with library resources and staffing already in place?  

Beyond Virtualization: Transforming the Law Library elaborates in detail on the concept of collaboration and the many various components worth considering in modernizing your Law Library. Release date is Friday, January 26th. Pre-release pricing now available. Click here to learn more.

When to benchmark your Legal Information Contracts

By Michael Feit | Benchmarking , Best Practices , Contract Negotiations , Feit Consulting , Legal Information Trends , White Papers

Contract negotiations not only set product/vendor pricing for the next contracted term, but can also determine the pricing path your firm will be on for years after. We all know the story–3-5% increases year over year. Once you lock in at a price and terms, this becomes your new baseline for future negotiations. Vendors will only want to increase over your current price.

However, price corrections can be made at your next contract negotiations. Feit Consulting sees about 15-20% of the large law firm market paying substantially higher than the market mid-point. Firms that fall into this category won’t be able to reach the market mid-point in one contract cycle; it could take several cycles to price-correct.

There are two secrets to securing optimal pricing in your next legal information contract negotiations: planning and market knowledge (benchmarking your contracts).

Allocating enough time to plan for negotiations is one element. Due to secret pricing, no one firm can truly know whether their contract is exceptional or fair without outside knowledge. Benchmarking your legal information contracts is a worthwhile exercise to understanding your starting place going into contract negotiations.

Feit Consulting has been a leader in optimizing legal information resources for firms since 2001.

Have your legal information contracts benchmarked by Feit Consulting, and receive a firm-specific benchmark. Alternatively, Feit Consulting’s white paper, Optimizing Legal Information Pricing shares Feit’s market benchmarks on Spend Per Attorney, Discounts and more.

Contact Feit Consulting today to get started.

Resources Offering ROI

By Michael Feit | Legal Information Trends , Resources

In 2016, Feit Consulting launched the Market Trends Legal Information Series. The Series is composed of white papers and survey results on pertinent topics in the legal information arena. The Series was launched with our report on Westlaw & Lexis: Path to Commoditization discussing the historical pricing and strategies of these vendors, and detailed insights to where the legal information market is heading.

Another hot topic is the sole provider trend. In January 2017, Feit Consulting released The Sole Provider Playbook and the Sole Provider Viability Decision Guide. These resources provide more than a high-level discussion about the trend. These resources can be used by firms and organizations as how-to guides, walking them through the process of evaluating, assessing, and implementing change. Out hope is that more firms will take on a proactive approach to evaluating the option, not waiting to the last minute when their hands are tied by the vendor. We want to provide firms and organizations with tools, concrete steps for making the best decision for their legal information strategy and bottom line.

This past summer, Feit Consulting released Optimizing Legal Information Pricing. A unique resource offering Feit Consulting’s view of pricing in the market. This is an excellent resource for getting a general sense of how your firm or organization’s contracts measure up. Feit Consulting can also conduct personalized benchmarking for your firm or organization.  This is highly recommended for anyone who has not received a Lexis or Westlaw price adjustment since 2008.

In developing these reports, we utilized surveys and conducted one-on-one interviews with experts in the field to provide comprehensive resources. What we heard over and over again from firms and organizations who purchased these reports has been how impressed they are with the wealth of knowledge and detail provided.

Whether you have unused funds for 2017, or want to get head of the game for anticipated 2018 projects, the Market Trends Legal Information Series provides a wealth of knowledge, guidance and processes for ROI of your legal information portfolio. Contact Feit today for year-end special pricing. Click here to learn more about all the reports and surveys we offer.

Is Lexis on the rise?

By Michael Feit | Legal Information Trends , Vendors

There has been a long-standing preference by attorneys and other legal information researchers for Westlaw products. And as such, Westlaw’s pricing has been significantly higher than Lexis. It had been enticing for some consumers to contract with Lexis based on pricing alone. But given how aggressively Lexis is acquiring Westlaw customers, it is clear that the reason is more than pricing and terms.

Based on a roadmap of enhancements that LEXIS provides subscribers, firms are looking to the future as they negotiate multi year contracts. Firms are choosing Lexis based on visual, analytical tools that have been highly received. Lexis has developed a clear vision for the future which includes a richer and more diverse portfolio than their past product mix.

With acquisitions like Lex Machina and Ravel, Lexis has seemingly cornered the market on analytics and data-driven decision making. Their new strategy is rebounding their solutions and products. It is evident that Lexis is paying attention to the future trends of artificial intelligence, and end users’ desire for greater functionality. The result, an improved LexisAdvance that knits these new products with a common gateway.

2017 has been a critical pivot year for Lexis. We anticipate to see Lexis continual rise in the market, both in number of contracted clients as well as in the richness of their products.

Troubles for Thomson?

By Michael Feit | Legal Information Trends

Despite immense popularity, firms are no longer tolerating the price disparity between Westlaw and Lexis. Lexis has turned a corner. They have been buying up a lot of exciting new products.

Lexis is offering Westlaw preferred firms an array of products, a suite at a price that is a percentage of Westlaw comparables. Westlaw’s stronghold is waning as firms learn to develop work arounds for alternative Lexis product offerings.

Before, firms did not have the wherewithal nor time to combat attorney pushack. Recovery rates continue to diminish, leaving less dollars in the firm’s pocket. We now see firms taking the time to plan ahead to consider eliminating a vendor. This adequate planning is allowing for smoother transition and substantial savings to the firm. As we see larger firms make the transition to having Lexis solely, we project the trend to increase more rapidly.

If your firm or organization is interested in assessing whether vendor elimination is the optimal path, check out our step by step guide on the Sole Provider Viability Decision Guide. For a limited time, Feit Consulting is offering a special year-end price on this report. Click here to learn more.