Target Audience: All librarians who use Lexis or Westlaw, or who train patrons in efficient online legal research Learning Outcomes: 1. Participants will be able to teach others how user interface design affects the legal research process. 2. Participants will be able to articulate how market forces and economic pressures influence legal information vendors and their web site designs.
Recent scholarship has theorized that Westlaw and Lexis design their user interfaces to maximize profits to the detriment of legal research. In this interactive session, vendors will respond to this assertion. Using an interview style question-and-answer format, panelists will discuss how their respective companies might harness technology to better serve the legal information industry, and whether the competing needs for efficiency and profit can peacefully coexist. Perspectives from new organizations outside the duopoly, which feature alternative legal research platforms, will augment the conversation. All panelists will candidly discuss the economic realities of online legal research and the provision of digital legal information.