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Professional Update
Issue 2, February 2007
- TAKE A TOUR ... 1) Need to Grow Revenue? Improve Billing Efficiency? Whatever Your Business’ Goals, New LexisNexis Web Site Makes it
Easy to Pinpoint the Right Solutions 2) Select a Firm Type; Choose a Business Objective … It’s That Easy to Compile LexisNexis Solutions Tailored to Your Needs 3) LexisNexis® Corporate Counsel Site Centers on Vital Counsel Tasks
- KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE ...Shh! Here’s a Reference “Secret Weapon” Worth Your Bookmark
- FYI FLASH ... 1) Your State’s Verdict & Settlement News Now at Your Fingertips 2) Check Mass Tort Experts, Their Cases and Challenges 3) Daubert Challenge Source Compiles Trial Expert Analysis 4) New LexisNexis® atVantage™ Offers Powerful Insights to Your Firm’s Marketing Team
- EXTRA EXTRA ... Talk to the Experts on the Hottest Issues in Civil Litigation … and Earn CLE
TAKE A TOUR. . . 1)Need to Grow Revenue? Improve Billing Efficiency? Whatever Your Business’ Goals, New LexisNexis Web Site Makes it Easy to Pinpoint the Right Solutions 2) Select a Firm Type; Choose a Business Objective … It’s That Easy to Compile LexisNexis Solutions Tailored to Your Needs 3) LexisNexis® Corporate Counsel
Site Centers on Vital Counsel Tasks
1)Need to Grow Revenue? Improve Billing Efficiency? Whatever Your Business’ Goals, New LexisNexis Web Site Makes it Easy to Pinpoint the Right Solutions
A tailored suit always fits better than a one-size-fits-all outfit. The same is true for a Web site. While a standard, easy-to-navigate page might work fine, a Web site customized and organized around your business needs can certainly enhance your product research.
This is the philosophy behind the newest evolution of the LexisNexis legal solutions Web site for law firms: make it simpler to locate and get helpful facts about the LexisNexis products and services your particular business setting requires.
Now, not only can law schools and government agencies, including courts, pinpoint the right LexisNexis products and services for their researchers, so can different law firm types.
Go to www.lexisnexis.com (Note: This is the LexisNexis product information site, not the site for research.) Select the Legal link.You can choose solutions for corporate legal departments, government agencies, etc.
And now, on this initial menu page, select the law firm setting that best fits your business:
- Full-Service Firms—Firms that serve corporate clients and government agencies across multiple practice areas and locations.
- Specialty Firms—Firms that focus on representing corporations and government agencies in one or a few key practice areas.
- Firms serving individuals and/or small businesses in one or a few jurisdictions.
Then you have access to details on LexisNexis® Total Practice Solutions for your firm type. Choose a specific task, e.g., Company & People Intelligence Gathering. Or select a general solution area, e.g., Client Development.
2) Select a Firm Type; Choose a Business Objective … It’s That Easy to Compile LexisNexis Solutions Tailored to Your Needs
The new LexisNexis legal solutions Web site simplifies product-information research. Refine your review to specific types of law firms as well as to specific practice and business goals. On page one of Update, you saw how to find the Web site
(www.lexisnexis.com), and how to select your business type. For example, in the following link: http://law.lexisnexis.com/full-service-law-firms, we’ve already selected full-service firms, i.e., firms with multiple locations and practice areas. From this point, all solutions information is geared for full-service firms. You have a variety of navigating and reviewing options:
- Select a Practice or Business solution, e.g., Client Development. Move to overviews of LexisNexis products for Client Development, such as Martindale-Hubbell® and LexisNexis® atVantage™. Get more details on each offering.
- Or move directly to specific tool types. For example, click Web and Email Alerts and move to overviews of LexisNexis® Publisher and LexisNexis® Total Alerts Powered by Ozmosys®. Detailed product descriptions offer links to available case studies, product literature and more.
- View special product highlights here. These change on a regular basis.
- Need to refine your product research even more? Select from 10 practice areas and 8 jurisdictions. Then view products and services available for those areas.
- Link to a LexisNexis Online Community, including LexisNexis® InfoPro for law librarians. To go to InfoPro, just click Information Professional.
- Search for specific products and solutions. For example, ENTER: case management and click GO. Then select products from the results screen.
- Link to the latest LexisNexis news!
- Move to the LexisNexis Bookstore, Customer Service Center, product training and tutorials and much more.
3) LexisNexis® Corporate Counsel Site Centers on Vital Counsel Tasks
The new LexisNexis Corporate Counsel Web site sums it up best: “You’re being tasked to do more with less as budgets shrink and responsibilities increase.”
So spend less time finding the right solutions for your organization. The newest iteration of the LexisNexis Corporate Counsel Web site—at www.lexisnexis.com/counsel—guides you to complete law and business solutions for your corporate counsel patrons.
Just select a task on the home page. The Web site compiles appropriate tools, products and services for you.
For example, select Protect Your Assets and move to the compliance, research, litigation and counsel management tools best suited for your business.
Or select a link to a specific solution type. When you select Compliance Solutions, for example, the Corporate Counsel Web site showcases LexisNexis solutions that corporate counsel departments use to:
- Understand the law;
- Assess risk;
- Learn best practices;
- Ensure workforce compliance; and
- Track internal and external activities.
See the new LexisNexis Corporate Counsel Web site at www.lexisnexis.com/counselor ask your LexisNexis account executive or LexisNexis Information Professional Consultant to show you more.
KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE . . .Shh! Here’s a Reference “Secret Weapon” Worth Your Bookmark
By Michael Saint-Onge, LexisNexis Senior Librarian Relations Consultant
I’ve always loved spy movies, especially the suspense scenes when the hero appears to be in an impossible situation. The tension grows, “that” music swells, and you’re balancing on the edge of your seat. Just when you’re sure there’s no hope, out pops some secret weapon that ultimately saves the day.
While it’s a little less dramatic in real life, I also love relying on those secret weapons to get myself out of a reference “dead end.” You know the kind I am talking about? Let’s say an attorney asks you an impossible reference question, and yet you deliver the answer to him within the hour? I love that! As librarians, we’re trained to use whatever resources we can access to ferret out the answer to even the toughest reference questions.
(It would be interesting to poll law librarian colleagues to uncover their favorite secret weapon. Law-lib? Zimmerman’s Research Guide on LexisNexis InfoPro at www.lexisnexis.com/infopro/zimmerman? The local county law library? There are lots of wonderful resources available!)
I have a secret weapon when it comes to all things LexisNexis: It is the LexisNexis at lexis.com® Knowledge Base. This is the site our very own Customer Support Professionals use to answer questions, and you have access to it at http://support.lexisnexis.com/lexiscom. (Bookmark it now. I guarantee you’ll be back!) You can also link to the Knowledge Base from within www.lexis.com. Click the online Help link. The Knowledge Base link is at the top left.
If you’re looking for search assistance, this site has links to valuable search tips, organized by topic (including company & financial, public records, and reference & directories), as well as several areas of law. If you’re looking for common segment descriptions for case law, news, statutes, and those ever-challenging financial documents, you’ll find those here as well.
There is also a link to the searchable Directory of Online Sources (the Source Locator), where you can search for sources by area of law, type of publication, even by publisher. And there is a link to Lexis® Search Advisor, which will lead you to on-point case law, treatises and law reviews. If you need help explaining to a patron how to use the LexisNexis® Case Summaries and LexisNexis® Headnotes, there is a link here to a helpful outline.
In addition to searching, this site offers technical assistance. Having trouble with signing on—or with your password? The Knowledge Base offers help screens that will walk you through the processes. There are links to general Internet troubleshooting, including a step-by-step guide to clearing your browser’s cache memory, a description of error messages you might have received, and an outline of how to adjust your browser font or text size. It even has a link to a browser utility that can show you your current system’s settings and the version of software you’re running.
If you’re having trouble printing or downloading from lexis.com, check out the Document Delivery links. There’s even an outline on how to print the full text of legislative documents.
Or check out the link to the LexisNexis InfoPro Web site and an in-depth explanation of LexisNexis SmartIndexing Technology™, the controlled vocabulary that lets you zero in on relevant results. Talk about a secret weapon!
FYI Flash...1) Your State’s Verdict & Settlement News Now at Your Fingertips 2) Check Mass Tort Experts, Their Cases and Challenges 3) Daubert Challenge Source Compiles Trial Expert Analysis 4) New LexisNexis® atVantage™ Offers Powerful Insights to Your Firm’s Marketing Team
1) Your State’s Verdict & Settlement News Now at Your Fingertips
The LexisNexis services now offer Mega News Verdict & Settlement sources for all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. These sources make it easier than ever before to find current news stories about verdicts, settlements and decisions.
Search one state or search all 50 states simultaneously in the group source. Here you get Mega News sources—in this case, news and legal sources published in the United States plus wire services where more than 60 percent of the stories originate in the United States. That means timely newswires and news transcripts, newspapers, magazines and trades sources, from the local coverage to premier sources including The Wall Street Journal®, The New York Times®, The Washington Post®, Los Angeles Times® and many more.
Then these Mega News sources utilize powerful LexisNexis SmartIndexing Technology™. Sources are automatically restricted to state-specific news stories and related to specialized LexisNexis SmartIndexing Technology terms, for example:
- Verdicts, which targets decisions of judges or juries on issues of fact in criminal or civil trials.
- Settlements, which targets rulings, judgments, court-ordered awards, outcomes of negotiations and alternative dispute resolution and out-of-court settlements.
- Decisions & Rulings, which targets final and preliminary decisions, findings, awards and rulings by judicial bodies.
Because you get daily updates from wire services such as The Associated Press, you can follow breaking verdict/settlement news. Even monitor topics of interest with a LexisNexis Alert search, which can be set to repeat automatically on a monthly, weekly or daily basis—even up to three times a day.
To find your state’s Mega News Verdicts & Settlements news source, go to Legal tab > (state name). The verdicts and settlement news is located under Briefs, Motions, Pleadings & Verdicts or Jury Instructions & Verdicts. Also check under each state’s Legal News menu.
The group source of all 50 states is at Legal tab > U.S. States – Legal > Combined States > Briefs, Motions, Pleadings & Verdicts. It is also available at Public Records tab > Public Records > Jury Verdicts & Experts
To track class-action lawsuits brought after corporations restate their earnings:
SOURCE: Mega News, Verdicts, Settlements & Decisions
SOURCE PATH: Public Records tab > Public Records > Jury Verdicts & Experts
SEARCH: restat! OR re-stat! /5 earning /20 class action
And you can still use LexisNexis SmartIndexing Technology terms in your search. For example, you are monitoring identity theft verdicts weekly with LexisNexis Alert. Your search query:
SEARCH: TERMS(identity theft PRE/1 9*% OR 8*%)
2) Check Mass Tort Experts, Their Cases and Challenges
LexisNexis® Expert Witness Mass Tort Summaries just joined www.lexis.com, providing more than 500 summaries of expert witnesses known to have testified in mass tort cases reported by the legal news editors at LexisNexis® Mealey’s™. Check it out with your library patrons who specialize in mass torts such as toxic torts, asbestos, mold litigation, etc.
And this collection of summaries will be expanded beyond mass tort experts in the future.
Each mass tort expert summary provides a 360-degree view of an expert witness, including their education. Summaries may include:
- the number of cases in which the expert has appeared;
- the jurisdictions in which that expert has appeared;
- Daubert and other challenges to the expert’s testimony and how those challenges fared;
- the expert’s curriculum vitae;
- a résumé of published medical or scientific articles;
- court documents related to challenges (e.g., motions to exclude, opinions admitting or denying testimony, etc.);
- references to news and professional trade publication articles that include mentions of or focus on a particular expert witness.
Summaries are easy to research. For example, search free text or use simple-to-remember segments to quickly isolate an expert by name or area of expertise:
SOURCE: LexisNexis® Expert Witness Mass Tort Summaries
SOURCE PATH: Legal tab > Litigation > Briefs, Motions, Pleadings & Verdicts
*SEARCH: NAME(frankenstein)
SEARCH: DISCIPLINE(toxicolog!)
Also use LexisNexis Expert Witness Mass Tort Summaries to pinpoint the right expert witness. For example, find a seasoned pediatric expert who has appeared in multiple cases:
SEARCH: DISCIPLINE(pediatric!) AND CASES-APPEARING > 5
Or find a specific type of expert who has faced few challenges:
SEARCH: DISCIPLINE(psychiatry) AND NUM-CHALLENGES < 2
*Fictitious name; used for illustration purposes only
3) Daubert Challenge Source Compiles Trial Expert Analysis
Daubert Tracker—Case Reports offer researchers access to information associated with reported as well as unreported “evidentiary gatekeeping” cases, both federal and state jurisdictions, back to 1993.
Available through the www.lexis.com Litigation menu (under Legal Reference Materials) and Public Records menu (under Jury Verdicts & Experts), Daubert Tracker—Case Reports are in list format for precision searching and fast review. Case summaries identify and explain the key reasons for the exclusion or admission of the challenged expert’s testimony.
While reports are organized by expert name and case, you can easily search by judge, jurisdiction (state or federal) and court. Also find out which side hired the expert, who represented for both sides—even find a link to the full-text case. So, in addition to reviewing Daubert challenges to a particular expert’s testimony, you can also review challenges by court, case type, etc. For example, to find Daubert challenges in vaccine injury cases heard by a specific judge:
SOURCE: Daubert Tracker—Case Reports
SOURCE PATH: Legal tab > Litigation > Legal Reference Materials
SEARCH: JUDGE(sweeney) AND vaccin!
To determine if opposing counsel has used a specific expert frequently, e.g.:
* SEARCH: COUNSEL(smith /3 martin) AND EXPERT (frankenstein)
*Fictitious name; used for illustration purposes only
4) New LexisNexis® atVantage™ Offers Powerful Insights to Your Firm’s Marketing Team
Think you have nothing to offer your marketing professionals?
Ask your LexisNexis account executive about new LexisNexis atVantage, an innovative business-development tool that lets you fully analyze and track your firm’s growth opportunities with clients and prospects. Research and stay up-to-date on industry and market trends. Even evaluate competing firms.
Manage, monitor and control the firm’s critical business-development activities. For example:
- Create highly targeted prospect lists based on litigation history, transaction volume, industry financials and other key criteria.
- Tap into the most comprehensive federal and state court records database for detailed client litigation activity. Determine your current share—and pinpoint who’s getting the remaining business.
- Profile 35 million public and private companies—get in-depth news, M&A activity, SEC and IP filings, as well as analyst reports on company strategy, risks and opportunities.
- Generate comprehensive reports on 1,200 industries so existing practice groups can focus business efforts.
- Receive automatic news and CourtLink® Alerts to ensure you are among the first to know when clients or prospects are sued or are featured in the news.
EXTRA EXTRA. . . Talk to the Experts on the Hottest Issues in Civil Litigation … and Earn CLE
A new year … new opportunities for learning and for achieving CLE credit requirements.
Mealey’s™ offers more than 50 litigation conferences annually on a broad array of topics, including—toxic torts, insurance litigation, pharmaceutical drugs and more. Each program features expert speakers at the forefront of their field. Your attorneys and paralegals stay up-to-date and even get the opportunity to develop new business in a relaxed, professional atmosphere during their networking receptions.
Mealey’s Conferences are scheduled across the nation and throughout the year to accommodate your busy patrons. And to enhance your productivity, LexisNexis makes it easy for you to inform your attorneys of upcoming opportunities and provide vital conference details.
Go to http://www.lexisnexis.com/conferences It’s easy to browse by dates, locations or topics. The site is also easy to bookmark. Or create links for your practice pages or specialty portals.
Find a conference of interest and get details on:
- Conference agenda
- Available CLE credits
- Hotel accommodations
- Registration fee and discounts
- Frequently asked conference questions
Even request a print conference brochure or view an electronic brochure.
The March/April live conferences are now open for registration. (Many more live conferences are scheduled throughout the year.):
March 12 – 13, 2007
Mealey’s California Bad Faith Conference
The Ritz-Carlton, Marina del Rey, CA
Conference Chaired by: Michael J. Brady, Esq., Ropers, Majeski, Kohn & Bentley PC, Redwood City, CA, and Scott C. Glovsky, Esq., Arkin & Glovsky, Pasadena, CA
Discover what you need to succeed: emerging theories, advanced trial skills, sophisticated case studies and a room full of attorneys & insurers. California’s bad faith law is now the most sophisticated and developed in the United States. Mealey’s California Bad Faith Litigation Conference will demonstrate that even though bad faith law is well advanced in the Golden State, new theories and strategies continue to develop. For example, the conference will explore such areas as the new Supreme Court law on Brandt Fees and our “dangerous neighbor,” Arizona, and how the explosion of bad faith in that state is affecting California practice.
March 12 – 13, 2007
Mealey’s 2nd Annual Solvent Schemes of Arrangement Conference
The Ritz-Carlton Battery Park, New York City
Conference Chaired by: Benedict M. Lenhart, Esq., Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, D.C., and Juliette Stevens, Clyde & Co., London
The number of pending schemes continues to rise, and with a second scheme being contested, it’s time to get involved, learn the rules and protect your position. The number of solvent schemes currently pending is significant, and continues to grow. British insurance companies are using solvent schemes to come to a court-arranged settlements with creditors that allow estimations of current and future long-tail claims (like asbestos or pollution) and a final payout. If you are, or represent, one of the policyholder/creditors, or you represent the insurer perspective, you need to know whether the schemes are in your best interest, how they are set up, how they work and whether the settlement is sufficient to take care of future “incurred but not reported” (IBNR) claims.
March 15 – 16, 2007
Mealey’s Fundamentals of Reinsurance Conference
The Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans
Conference Chaired by: Stephanie Taylor Dunn, Esq., Steptoe & Johnson LLP, Washington, D.C., and Lewis E. Hassett, Esq., Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, Atlanta
Leading cedant and reinsurer attorneys and industry executives will take you on a step-by-step journey through the world of reinsurance litigation and arbitration—making this the perfect place to learn the latest on this evolving area of law. Plus receive a clear picture of industry issues that affect how business is conducted today, so you’ll have the knowledge and skills to deal with evidence and experts, honorable engagements, reinsurance regulators, and much more.
March 19 – 20, 2007
Mealey’s Mass Tort Insurance Coverage Conference
The Rittenhouse Hotel, Philadelphia
Go to the conference Web site at www.lexisnexis.com/conferences for more details.
April 12 – 13, 2007
Mealey’s Additional Insured Conference
Hyatt Regency, Chicago
Go to the conference Web site at www.lexisnexis.com/conferences for more details.
April 12 – 13, 2007
Mealey’s Welding Rod Litigation Conference
Intercontinental Buckhead, Atlanta
Go to the conference Web site at www.lexisnexis.com/conferences for more details.
April 16, 2007
Mealey’s Asbestos Medicine Conference
The Westin Philadelphia
Go to the conference Web site at www.lexisnexis.com/conferences for more details.
April 19 – 20, 2007
Mealey’s Lead Litigation Conference
Intercontinental, Chicago
Go to the conference Web site at www.lexisnexis.com/conferences for more details.
Wednesday, April 25 – 28, 2007
Mealey’s 14th Annual Insurance Insolvency & Reinsurance Roundtable
The Fairmont Scottsdale Princess, Phoenix
Conference Chaired by: William E. O’Farrell, Esq., Chief Reinsurance Officer, ACE Group, Philadelphia, PA; E. Jane Owen, Legal & Regulatory Director and Company Secretary, Aon UK, London; and James R. Stinson, Esq., Sidley Austin LLP, Chicago, IL
This year’s Roundtable will explore three major themes. Thursday’s sessions will focus on Securitization and Alternative Risk Transfer, in the context of the unprecedented natural and man-made catastrophe risks facing the industry today. On Friday, examine Insurance & Reinsurance Claims, Litigation and Arbitration, focusing on the reinsurance asset, its collection and current issues and ideas in dispute resolution. Saturday is devoted to Cross-Border Issues, and the challenges presented by different regulations and laws.
No Time for “Live” Conferences?
Check the LexisNexis Conferences Web site listed above for other conference formats, including teleconferences (Simply dial the 800 number and you’re connected!), record conferences (Bring home all of the educational benefits on videotape, audiotape and/or audio CD.), or conference handbooks. Handbooks from past conferences offer a variety of materials submitted by speakers such as legal analyses, published articles, medical studies and related charts and graphs. Many conferences have handbooks available on CD.
LexisNexis™ Information Professional Update
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LexisNexis Information Professional Update is a monthly newsletter (November/December issues combined) for law-firm, law-school, corporate, and government information professionals published by
LexisNexis, P.O. Box 933, Dayton, OH 45401-0933.
Managing Editor
Barbara M. Byrd
barbara.byrd@lexisnexis.com
Contributors
Peter Adams, Beverly Burns, Kara Cox,
Lorraine Gongla-Coppinger, Jayne Nash,
Carol Sandy
Legal Liaison
Shari Townsend
For comments or questions regarding legal products, contact:
Cindy Spohr, MLS
Senior Director, Librarian Relations Group
cindy.spohr@lexisnexis.com
LexisNexis, Shepard’s, lexis.com, Martindale-Hubbell, Lexis and the Knowledge Burst logo are registered trademarks, and QuoteCheck and LexisNexis SmartIndexing Technology are trademarks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used under license. Mealey’s, BriefCheck and atVantage are trademarks of LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.. CourtLink is a registered trademark of LexisNexis CourtLink, Inc. Other products or services may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
© 2007 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier.
All Rights Reserved. LB2007-2 0107
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