Independent Study Validates Metrics Used by LexisNexis to Measure Product Claims

It’s no secret that the legal services industry is a highly competitive marketplace in which providers of content and software solutions try to put the best spin on the quality of their respective products. In an effort to distinguish themselves from other providers, companies tend to make all sorts of claims about their products being faster, better or easier than the others in their market.

But how do you know if these claims are based on legitimate methodologies or if they are just biased, self-serving marketing assertions designed to place imaginary distance between them and their competitors?

The only way to really know how much confidence you can place in a legal solutions provider’s product claims is to choose not to take their word for it. That means enlisting an independent third party to turn over every stone and objectively study the company’s product claims and the validity of their metrics. So, earlier this year, LexisNexis engaged PwC, a leading international professional services firm, to deconstruct all of our methodologies used for assessing our content reach, our customer satisfaction and our user preferences.

PwC rigorously reviewed the methodologies that LexisNexis uses to collect and analyze the data and customer feedback we rely upon to ensure product excellence across a broad range of products and services, with a particular focus on online legal research, practical guidance and analysis. Some of these specific competitive claims include:

• LexisNexis has 22% more federal cases and 210 million more dockets than its closest competitor.
• LexisNexis’ rigorous blind testing process for case law search relevance has resulted in continuous improvements to the search algorithm.
• LexisNexis adds new cases faster than its closest competitor 79% of the time.
• The flagship Lexis+ legal research solution had a 90% satisfaction rate among large law firms and a 92% satisfaction rate among corporate general counsel.
• Lexis+ is preferred by 29% more law students than its closest competitor, with preference extending across all class levels.

The good news for us is that the PwC study independently validated the methodologies that we use to compare our performance across the market for legal search technology services. The good news for our customers and prospective customers is that they can have confidence that the claims we make about our products and services are backed by scientifically rigorous metrics that were tested for relevance, rigor, independence and robustness.

“Demonstrating industry leadership and distinguishing oneself from competitors often requires organizations to make bold claims about their competitive offerings – most of which are taken with a grain of salt by decision-makers, the media and other stakeholders,” added Sean Fitzpatrick. “Having successfully demonstrated the validity of our methodologies, we’re sending a clear, unequivocal message to the market that the claims we make are objective reflections of our product and service capabilities, and that they deliver on our customers’ needs better than the competition.”

Lexis+® is a modern all-in-one platform from LexisNexis that combines superior research and data-driven insights. The solution provides legal professionals with all of the tools and resources necessary to practice with confidence and efficiency through five content libraries: Legal Research; Advanced Legal Analytics; Brief Analysis; Legal News Hub; and Practical Guidance.

Experience Lexis+ for yourself by signing up for a free 7-day trial or go to www.lexisnexis.com/lexisplus for more information.