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From: johnl@ima.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Re: Re: Case History Data Base Avalaible
Message-ID: <461@ima.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-Jan-85 23:41:19 EST
Article-I.D.: ima.461
Posted: Fri Jan 25 23:41:19 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 28-Jan-85 07:16:24 EST
Lines: 13
Nf-ID: #R:tpvax:0:ima:10900001:000:757
Nf-From: ima!johnl    Jan 25 23:29:00 1985

The other large legal data base is Lexis from Mead Data Central.  It differs
from Westlaw in that Westlaw stores abstracts of cases, while Lexis actually
has the full text of court decisions.  Lexis only has one search technique --
full text search for words and phrases.  Lexis has a sister service Nexis which
stores encyclopedias, trade journals, and the like.

Lexis isn't cheap, though.  It runs $60-$90/hour.  Until recently, if you
wanted to use Lexis, you had to rent an official Lexis/Nexis terminal from
Mead, since they seemed to be afraid that if people could call in from
random terminals they'd download Lexis' umpteen gigabyte database to their PCs
and stop calling Lexis.  I gather this paranoia has abated somewhat.

John Levine, ima!johnl