A big thank you to Druet Cameron Klugh of the Holme Roberts & Owen firm in Denver for sending in the first (and only) Point of View question. Druet sent in the following question:
For quite some time, I have searched PLI on Westlaw®. Recently, Lexis issued a release saying that they have an "exclusive" arrangement with PLI. Could you explain the differences between PLI materials on Westlaw and on Lexis? Or, if that is not appropriate or expedient, just clarify what parts of PLI are on Westlaw?
Answer: We have an exclusive agreement with PLI to provide the PLI course handbooks on Westlaw. The course handbooks contain the text of the CLE materials that PLI presents to practitioners. We have had these materials on Westlaw since 1987. Lexis offers the PLI reference books, which are the PLI treatises.
Thanks again Druet. I hope you enjoy the KeyCite Suisse army knife prize for sending in one of the first 10 questions.
Now, since I have no other questions to answer, I will use this opportunity to provide you with some information on the West Group Legal Tools.
West Group Legal Tools comprises the following four desktop utilities:
1. CiteLink is a powerful tool that finds legal citations in your Microsoft Word 97 or Corel Wordperfect 8 documents and creates hypertext links to the full text of the documents on the Internet. By installing CiteLink, you are adding commands to the Tools menu and buttons to the toolbar in Microsoft Office 97 or Corel Wordperfect 8.
Clicking a link created by CiteLink launches your Web browser. The cited document is displayed in the browser via WestDoc or Westlaw.com. CiteLink also automatically creates and updates a table of authorities for your document. You can choose to include hypertext links from each entry in the table of authorities to its reference in your document.
2. Find on Westlaw allows you to retrieve a specific case from the Start menu, search Westlaw or check a citation in KeyCite.
3. Legal Themes adds new themes to your set of desktop display options. Microsoft Plus! is required to use this feature.
4. Legal Links adds a list of law-related Web sites to your Internet Explorer Favorites or Netscape Navigator Bookmarks menu.
Version 1.1 Enhancements
West Group Legal Tools version 1.1 provides several enhancements and new features for CiteLink and Find on Westlaw. One new feature for both is the addition of westlaw.com and the removal of Westlaw PRO on the
Web as a destination option for hypertext links, Find requests and Westlaw searches. The default destination for all links and Find requests is now WestDoc.
CiteLink now has options for performing several new tasks directly from Word 97 documents: searching westlaw.com, embedding hypertext links for Westlaw searches (SearchLinkTM feature) and checking citations in KeyCite.
SearchLink allows you to tag a section of text of not more than 255 characters and save it as a Natural Language or Terms and Connectors search. A customer could store this search as part of a word-processing document in a brief bank or newsletter.
A new tab, Search Westlaw, has been added to Find on Westlaw. Users can select a database from a pop-up list, then enter a Terms and Connectors query or Natural Language description and run their search on Westlaw via westlaw.com.
Please let me know if you have questions regarding West Group Legal Tools or any other questions relating to Westlaw. I look forward to hearing from you.