It’s been a long time coming, but Bloomberg is finally ready to unveil its new legal research tool. It will compete with Lexis and Westlaw for the hearts and minds of law students and junior associates across the land.
Bloomberg Law will have its launch party at the end of the month at the west side offices of Willkie Farr.
It is way too early to tell if Bloomberg Law will truly offer an innovation in case law research. But we already know the company has put a metric ton of money into the product.
And we know that they’ve been hiring former attorneys for at least two years. I found out about the Bloomberg Law project way back in early 2007, when I was freelancing and looking for work (I declined to follow up on the opportunity). More recently, if you know a New York attorney who was laid off at the end of 2008 who didn’t interview with Bloomberg, then you know a New York attorney that wasn’t really trying that hard to get a job.
Click here (PDF) to check out Bloomberg Law’s initial offerings.
We’ve learned how to Shepardize, we’ve learned how to KeyCite, will we all soon learn how to Citator?
Westlaw
Law librarians got miffed at Westlaw this week, after the legal research company sent out the following advertisement via e-mail:
Law librarians across the land were appalled and voiced their displeasure on this list-serv, among other places. From a librarian at a large southern law firm:
[Apparently] the folks at West think that attorneys shouldn’t know their librarians’ names. I’d love to see ATL’s snarky humor sticking it to West (or, Hell, stick it to us law librarians if you think we’re being too sensitive.)
We don’t think you’re being too sensitive. In fact, we have a great appreciation for law librarians.
We know that law librarians are hot. We know that librarianship is a good career alternative. We know that law library staffers save lives, literally. And we think knowing their names is not something to mock.
While the folks at LexisNexis are doing a little happy dance, what does Westlaw have to say for itself?
Life happens fast. This morning we reported that Thomson Reuters had revoked free printer access to law schools in Puerto Rico.
It seems that the policy has now been reversed. A message from University of Puerto Rico law professor José Julián Álvarez González, after the jump.
Continue reading “Westlaw Printer Access Restored for Puerto Rico!”
Update (4:15): After this post went was published, Thomson Reuters reversed course and reinstated the free printer access to Puerto Rican law schools. Click here for our coverage.
Thomson Reuters owns Westlaw and is one of the two major gatekeepers to legal research in the modern world. Recently, the company made an economic decision that some claim unfairly impacts law students in Puerto Rico. A tipster reports:
It seems Westlaw has decided to cut their free printer service to the four Puerto Rico Law schools for economic reasons, while keeping the service in all US law schools.
Why would Westlaw only discontinue free printer access to Puerto Rican law students? One Westlaw user wrote to Thompson Reuters, asking the company to reconsider its decision. But he also seems to have figured out why Westlaw made this decision.
Continue reading “Is Westlaw Discriminating Against Puerto Rico?”
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In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
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The Asia Chronicles – ASSOCIATE AND IN-HOUSE OPENINGS IN HONG KONG / CHINA, JAPAN AND SINGAPORE
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We currently have a number of active openings for associate roles at US and UK firms in HK / China, Singapore and two new in-house openings. As always, please feel free to reach out to us at asia@kinneyrecruiting.com in order to get details of current openings in Asia, as well as to discuss the Asia markets in general and what we expect for openings later this year. Our Evan Jowers and Robert Kinney will be in Beijing the week of March 25 and Evan Jowers will be in Hong Kong the week of April 1, if you would like to meet them in person.
The US associate openings we have in law firms are in the usual areas of M&A, cap markets, FCPA / white collar litigation, finance, and project finance. The most urgent of our top tier (top 15 US or magic circle) law firm openings in Asia (among many other firm openings that we have in Asia) are as follows:
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