Who Westlaw if For
Westlaw’s Classic plans are likely to be more attractive to firms of all sizes who are looking for a legal research solution. These plans are actually more limited than other, less expensive, resources out there. Firms needing sources from more than one state, or that bill on a flat fee, might not find the best fit in Westlaw.
Alternatively, larger law firms billing for associate research time, may actually find Westlaw Edge costs less for their clients. Additionally, firms that need a specific secondary source along with case law review, will likely need to include an add-on to their Westlaw subscription at an additional cost.
Westlaw Subscription Pricing
Westlaw Classic
Classic is a no frills legal research database. This Westlaw pricing tier is intended to compete with some of the less established legal research platforms out there like Casetext, and Fastcase. It’s much less expensive than Westlaw’s other plans. But it can quickly add up with customizations. At its most basic, this Westlaw subscription runs $119.20/user/month, which includes State Court case law (for one state), KeyCites, Statutes, and Court Rules. Which doesn’t include what they are known for—robust secondary sources.
Westlaw Precision
Westlaw is still rolling out its Precision product. Users can request a free trial, but there does not appear to be any specific pricing details on the website at the time of this review. They bill this product as a way to cut research time significantly. At this time, it does not appear to be a useful product for small to medium sized law firms.
Westlaw Edge
Edge is now Westlaw’s premier product. And at somewhere around $174.40/user/month, it’s not much more than Classic. However, Westlaw recently reduced its power. Essentially, this plan adds some Edge features to the Classic plan. It includes litigation analytics, predictive searching, and KeyCite overruling risk. But users still have to increase their plan, or include substantial add-ons to get access to Federal Law, analytics, dockets, and secondary sources.
KeyCite Overruling Risk
KeyCite Overruling Risk comes with the Edge subscription and expands KeyCite by flagging a case if it relies on bad or overruled law. Users can find cases that have been explicitly overruled through Keycite, all at once.
Statutes Compare
Statutes Compare allows statutory revisions comparisons on the state and federal level to help understand the legislative intent. This insight allows incorporation of legislative intent into business advice and litigation advocacy. Statutes Compare shows exactly how a statute has evolved and is included with a Westlaw Edge subscription.
Secondary Sources
Westlaw’s software features a comprehensive secondary sources database that includes a streamlined interface to browse and bookmark publications. This is where Westlaw (and LexisNexis) set themselves apart from the rest. However, this is also where they charge the most. Currently, users need to add-on secondary sources to any of their subscriptions, often at a significant price.
Love to Hate Westlaw
Here’s the reality — as a litigator, you can’t afford to lose a case because your research missed something important. So, I regard access to a solid legal research tool to be non-optional.
Having said that, while I like the Westlaw service, I absolutely cannot stand the COMPANY. They are HORRIBLE. Westlaw’s contract terms are simply abusive. Example = if you sign a 12-month contract, it will automatically renew (with a significant increase) unless you cancel, in writing, within a narrow window of time. Also, can you cancel via email? NOPE. The ONLY accepted method of cancelation is to send SNAIL MAIL. In the year 2021, what company would do such a thing?
It’s like Westlaw is being operated by a group of greedy a-holes who learned their sharp business practices in the early 1980s and have refused to consider changing with the times.
Honestly, given the size of this market, I would really like to see someone like Google or maybe Amazon create a competing service that will simply drive Westlaw out of business….or at least force them to seriously change their business practices.
On that note, I am VERY close to giving CaseText a try. Their pricing is WAY more reasonable and the service seems good…..I just don’t like the format of their website (WAY too much white space on every page).
Bait and Switch
Lo and behold, a few months in (after using the product only a couple times) I managed to click on a different service that appears on my home page and incurred an extra $174 charge for “viewing a document” not in my plan. I have no idea what I did, but it took a couple weeks to get them to give me a “one time only credit” whereupon I was basically called a liar. I sent in a request to cancel my contract based on the horrible service experience and being afraid to use the product–still didn’t know how I incurred the extra charge.
The very snippy reply indicated that they believe both parties need to uphold the contracts, so I couldn’t quit until my year was up. Further, my request to cancel was not viewed as a “request to terminate” under termination clause so if I failed to make a request to terminate at least sixty days prior to the end of the contract, I would be re-renewed for another year at an increased rate.
You know what else this company doesn’t have in their pages of fine print? A non-disparagement clause.
In my opinion, they are the worst of the legal research options and I will never, ever recommend doing business with them.
Fake free trial