I am in a small law office, so my eperience might not be comparable to those of you in large libraries. Nevertheless, I offer my comments anyway. I have not switched to the Web version of Westlaw for three reasons:
1) the CD ROM version that I copy on to a hard drive is much faster, since a hard drive is faster than a modem. Since I look at a lot of cases, this is an important factor to me. The difference in speed really adds up when you're looking at a hundred cases.
2) Perhaps more importantly, the "software" version allows the reader to highlight cases as they are being read, and the Web version does not have this feature. This hightlighting feature is very important to me, since it means in effect that the I only have to read a case once instead of twice.
3) The "software" version is not dependent upon telephone lines, distant servers, etc. and is therefore more dependable.
The Web version is more comprehensive (more law for less money). Also, the software for the CD ROM version has glitches in it that West cannot fix (I've tried a number of times), and I see from the comments that some of you have encountered these same problems. But I still find that the advantages of the software version are hard to put aside.
Robert L. Donald
Attorney at Law
Fort Myers, FL
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