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< | The Lexis-Westlaw Duopoly |
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> | The Lexis/Westlaw Duopoly and the Proprietization of Legal Research |
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The Political Economy of Legal Research |
| | A side effect of the duopoly model is that Lexis and Westlaw share an incentive to differentiate their platforms. If they had identical interfaces, then habituated users could costlessly change systems, and market competition would preclude the extraction of monopoly rents. This dynamic can be observed in the functionally equivalent but symbolically differentiated search terms implemented by Lexis and Westlaw. |
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< | A less obvious implication is that Lexis/Westlaw have a standalone incentive to complicate their platforms. The more complicated a platform, the more platform-specific human capital can be invested, and correspondingly the higher the monopoly tax that can be imposed. This hypothesis is confirmed by a passing glance at the staggering turmoil of clutter that suffices as the Lexis/Westlaw interfaces (relative to Precydent's parsimony). This is a systemic problem related to that plaguing the "Blue Book"--that is, the editors are incentivized to repeatedly deliver arbitrary changes in new editions so that lawyers and legal scholars are forced to purchase the newest copy. |
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> | A less obvious implication is that Lexis/Westlaw have a standalone incentive to complicate their platforms. The more complicated a platform, the more platform-specific human capital can be invested, and correspondingly the higher the monopoly tax that can be extracted. This hypothesis is confirmed by a passing glance at the staggering turmoils of clutter that suffice as the Lexis/Westlaw interfaces (Cf. Precydent's parsimonious appearance). This is a systemic problem related to that plaguing the "Blue Book," in which managers are incentivized to repeatedly deliver arbitrary changes so that lawyers and legal scholars are forced to purchase new editions. |
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< | The effectiveness of a distribution system can be measured by its cost. The ineffectiveness of the old-world music distribution system was illustrated by the share of its revenues that went to feeding the distribution system, rather than the content-production system. The same can be said of Lexis and Westlaw--In 2005, Lexis managed revenues of $8.94 billion with a 23.1% profit margin. Lexis's corporate parent, Elsevier, spent [$12.5 million between 1998 and 2006 lobbying the U.S. Congress. |
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> | The effectiveness of a distribution system can be measured by its cost. The ineffectiveness of the old-world music distribution system was illustrated by the share of its revenues that went to feeding the distribution system, rather than the content-production system. The same can be said of Lexis and Westlaw--In 2005, Lexis managed revenues of $8.94 billion with a 23.1% profit margin. Lexis's corporate parent Elsevier, meanwhile, spent [$12.5 million between 1998 and 2006 lobbying the U.S. Congress. |
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< | The Role of The Law School |
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> | Complicity in the Legal Academy |
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< | During my first semester at Columbia Law School, my Legal Practice Workshop instructor required his students to register with the Westlaw legal research system and submit all graded work via [[lawschool.westlaw.com][TWEN], Westlaw's proprietary online courseware. Since registering on LexisNexis 13 months ago as part of my Legal Research Workshop, I have received 56 emails from Lexis--just shy of one email per week. These emails offer me "Lexis Points" in exchange for using their service--not for schoolwork, but for playing around on an arbitrary legal-research task or tutorial. |
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> | During my first semester at Columbia Law School, my Legal Practice Workshop instructor required his students to register with Westlaw and submit all graded work via [[lawschool.westlaw.com][TWEN], Westlaw's proprietary online courseware. Since registering on LexisNexis 13 months ago as part of my Legal Research course, I have received 56 emails from Lexis--about one per week. These emails offer me "Lexis Points" in exchange for using their service--not for schoolwork, but for playing around on an arbitrary legal-research task or tutorial. |
| | The purpose and effect of Westlaw's TWEN services and Lexis's bribes, of course, are to habituate me to working on their respective research platform. By participating in such policies, Columbia is complicit in the services' later abuse of their graduate's platform-specific human capital. There are decent commercial alternatives? to Lexis/Westlaw, as well as irreproachable free efforts, but Columbia ignores them. Columbia's legal-research curriculum ensures that Lexis/Westlaw can tax Columbia graduates. |