Dear Law-Libbers:
Several months ago, I solicited suggestions for a list of law library
cost-saving tips. They are designed to be of aid to all types of law
libraries, from those of solo practitioners to the largest law
libraries. Most were distilled from my "Legal Information Buyer's Guide
and Reference Manual," however, a few were received from fellow law
librarians. The following forty-eight tips are the result. I know there
are other tips out there which could be added to this list, so I invite
your further contributions. I will periodically post this list to the
listserv as it grows. All contributors will be acknowledged. It will
also be included as an additional appendix in the Year 2000 Edition of
the "Legal Information Buyer's Guide and Reference Manual." Many thanks
for your suggestions. Also, please feel free to cross-post this list to
other listservs to which you may subscribe.
Law Library Cost-Saving Tips
Kendall F. Svengalis
R.I. State Law Library
ksven@ids.net
1. Consider the distance to your local public law library before leasing
office space.
2. In an age of escalating prices for legal publications, wise initial
selection is imperative. Be sure to investigate all available options
for appropriate depth of coverage, price, and supple-mentation cost,
among other factors. Don't buy less than you require or more than you
need.
3. When entering a subscription to a print legal product, be sure to
determine what add-ons may be included in the subscription (e.g. advance
annotation service, session laws, law finder, tax volumes, desk book,
etc.) or if "related" volumes may be shipped.
4. Be sure you know how often a legal publication is supplemented before
making a purchase.
5. Avoid standing orders to secondary publications unless you intend to
consult them frequently or they are in your area of specialization.
They should be viewed as starting points for research, not tools for
ascertaining the current state of the law. Use your primary law
materials and citators to accomplish this.
6. Place supplementation to secondary publications on a notification
before shipment basis. If necessary, order latest supplement on a
"Rush" basis.
7. If a standing order is dropped, determine in advance how you will
update the publication (use library copy, Shepard's, KeyCite, annotated
code, case digest, legal newspaper, CD-ROM, online service, or
combination of these). Remember that you will still be using many of
these tools to update the treatise which is on standing order.
8. Avoid telemarketers. If one gets through to you, do not buy anything
from them unless you want to end up on the publisher's list of hot
prospects. Request a flyer if you are at all interested. Finally, ask
to be taken off of the publisher's telemarketing list.
9. Consider alternatives to a complete set (abridged editions, selected
volumes, statutory subject compilations, etc.).
10. Share library and expenses with other firms in your building.
11. Exercise strict controls over the purchase of duplicate copies. Make
an effort to force lawyers who desire personal copies of items already
in the library to purchase them at their own expense.
12. Check amazon.com for discounted law books (e.g. ABA titles).
13. Subscribe to "lawlib" listserv to obtain books for the cost of
postage.
14. Buy used books whenever feasible, but be sure to determine fill-up
cost and compare with new purchase and accompanying no-charge
supplementation. Recent price drops for many West print products
(digests, reporters, statutes, etc.) may now make the new set the better
buy when no-charge supplementation is factored in. Establish standing
orders for supplementation with publisher when appropriate.
15. Law firms without librarians should assign one member of firm
responsibility for the library.
16. Evaluate shipments before accessioning or stamping. Be prepared to
return if unsolicited and/or unnecessary. If unsolicited, request
return label or claim at no cost under terms of U.S. Postal law (39
U.S.C. §3009)
17. Place library titles on spreadsheet and determine appropriate
frequency of supplementation for each title. Make sure your standing
orders with publishers reflect these determinations.
18. Conduct annual inventory of collection and the expense incurred.
Re-evaluate subscriptions based on usage patterns and cost.
19. Set Internet browser to FindLaw or other legal site.
20. Determine which public and commercial Web sites are of greatest
value to a practitioner in your jurisdiction and practice areas and
bookmark these.
21. Resist publisher demands to purchase more user licenses to CD-ROM
or online products than absolutely necessary.
22. Determine ways to fix your online research expense through a
combination of CD-ROM and fixed online pricing (e.g. CD-ROM, Westlaw
PRO, Lexis Advantage, LOIS, VersusLaw, etc.). Establish similar pricing
for citator services (Shepard's or KeyCite).
23. Consider establishing a VersusLaw account for $6.95 per month. At
the very least, consider it as a back-up to a LEXIS or WESTLAW
subscription for those cases outside of your own jurisdiction.
24. Consider a cyclical re-ordering of supplementation to secondary
publications (every 2-5 years based on your usage patterns).
25. Read fine print and contract terms. In particular, watch out for
supplementation terms which may allow the publisher to ship related
titles on approval.
26. Avoid broader forays into Westlaw or Lexis from the jurisdiction(s)
included in your fixed-rate contract or CD-ROM uplink. Consider
alternatives (e.g. VersusLaw or LOIS).
27. Evaluate print products, CD-ROM, and online services in a publicly
accessible law library before making a purchase.
28. Avoid on-approval purchases unless you are fairly certain you will
keep the material. Don't agree to an on-approval purchase at suggestion
of telemarketer unless you want to wind up on more telemarketing lists.
29. Determine recent history of supplementation costs before agreeing to
a purchase. Publishers are required to provide last two years in
brochures. Check spreadsheet of initial
and supplementation costs in latest edition of "Legal Information
Buyer's Guide and Reference Manual."
30. Inquire about combination or institutional (e.g. library) discounts
for larger purchases.
31. If you have a lapsed subscription, make sure your local sales
representative alerts you to special fill-up promotions with no-cost
supplementation for a certain period of time. Allow subscription to
lapse again at end of free supplementation if this fits your collection
supplementation profile.
32. Use Westlaw or Lexis research attorneys before conducting
complicated search in both fixed and non-fixed-cost databases.
33. Consider dropping standing order to serial volumes in such sets as
ALR, Am Jur Trials, Am Jur Proof of Facts, Causes of Action, Am Jur
Legal Forms, Am Jur Pleading and Practice Forms, etc. Given high annual
supplementation costs, consider repurchasing these sets every 3 years.
If you maintain bound volume subscription, buy pocket parts every 2-3
years. The annual supplementation cost of many of these sets now exceeds
the new purchase price.
34. If you keep Am Jur 2d on standing order, drop annual Federal
Taxation volumes, annual index volumes, and purchase pocket parts every
2-3 years. For even greater savings, purchase a current used set every
3-4 years.
35. Consider maintaining a subscription to your regional reporter or
federal advance sheets only instead of the advance sheets and
accompanying bound volumes.
36. Beware of solicitations disguised as invoices. These often follow
trial subscriptions.
The tactic is based on the assumption that you are more likely to renew
a subscription to which you already subscribe (even though you never
actually subscribed by conscious decision).
37. Determine if the frequency with which a publication is supplemented
corresponds to the frequency with which you expect consult it. If you
are uncertain, be sure to reevaluate at the end of the subscription
period. Don't subscribe to a weekly looseleaf service if a treatise
with annual pocket part will do.
38. Don't be lulled into thinking that a fixed-rate online contract can
spare you from concerns about usage. The terms of your next contract
will approximate your higher usage patterns. Cost-effective searching is
always a good idea. Consider ways to divert usage from the
higher-priced online services to LOIS, VersusLaw, CD-ROM, etc.
39. If you have a fixed-rate Westlaw or Lexis contract, consider
pairing it with a subscription to LOIS or VersusLaw to keep usage, and
future costs, under control. If not for your firm, do it for your
clients. At the very least, encourage your users to use LOIS or
VersusLaw as their default online option to develop a basic
understanding of a legal issue and its terminology before going on to
one of the high-priced online services.
40. Consider becoming a member of an ABA section in your area of
specialization. Take advantage of special discounts and offers.
41. Consider the purchase of one issue of a LOIS CD-ROM product if it
provides more comprehensive historical coverage of court decisions (e.g.
the LOIS Rhode Island CD-ROM covers volume 1 (1828) of the Rhode Island
Reports to date, whereas the West product coverage begins with 1885).
Unlike the other CD-ROM publishers, LOIS will sell one disc without
requiring an annual subscription. Thus, if you prefer the West Premise
product, whose case law coverage begins in 1885, you can still obtain
the full historical coverage with the purchase one of the quarterly LOIS
CD-ROMs for $165.00.
42. Don't read materials while online. Print lists of citations and
read in hard copy, or, if print is unavailable, offline print desired
cases, statutes, etc. and then sign-off.
43. One cost-saving tip many small firms overlook is the benefit of
Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw. Many firms buy CD-ROMs that duplicate the
content they already have access to online (many even have at least one
flat-rate contract and continue to purchase CD-ROMs). As you know,
CD-ROMs require a lot more costs than just the subscription - possibly a
CD-ROM tower, server, and all the maintenance costs associated with
updating. Another aspect that small firms tend to overlook is the
ability to bill back time (or recover the cost) spent on CDs vs.
Online. Online services are relatively easy to determine, while CD-ROMs
have so many hidden costs that the time feature built in to many CD-ROMs
does not accurately account for the total cost. Aside from the costs,
you really can't beat those free 1-800 numbers with knowledgeable
attorneys!
(Ann Walsh Long)
44. Negotiate hard with Lexis-Nexis and Westlaw to get the best deal for
your firm; play one against the other to get the best deal from either
(as one might with two car dealerships offering similar car models).
(Luis Acosta)
45. Remember that obtaining information for "free" on the Internet may
not be the most cost-efficient solution when a proprietary service can
deliver the information more quickly.
46. Pay in cash to avoid shipping and handling charges or obtain
discount (e.g. Matthew Bender's 5% cash discount).
47. Don't neglect to evaluate the usage and cost of even some of your
long-standing subscriptions. With advances in technolgy, some
publications may no longer receive the level of usage to justify their
cost. For example,West's Federal Case News, now priced at $375.00 per
year, has been largely left behind by online services and other current
awareness tools.
48. LOIS has recently lowered the price of its "Internet All"
subscription to $1176.00 per year. This gives you access to cases,
statutes, regulations, session laws, and attorney general opinions for
most states at a low fixed cost. As before, multiple members of a law
firm may share the same user name and password without additional per
attorney charges.
Send your additional cost-saving tips to me at: ksven@ids.net
Ken Svengalis
R.I. State Law Library
250 Benefit Street
Providence, RI 02903
401-222-3275
FAX: 401-222-3865
ksven@ids.net
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