LexisNexis

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"LEXIS" and "Nexis" redirect here. For similar words, see Lexis (disambiguation) and Nexus (disambiguation).
LexisNexis
Type Subsidiary
Industry Publishing
Founded 1977
Headquarters Dayton, Ohio[1]
United States
Products Caselaw, Articles, Publications, News, Court Documents, Lawyer Marketing, Law Practice Management Tools
Parent Reed Elsevier
Website www.lexisnexis.com

LexisNexis Group is a corporation that provides computer-assisted legal research services.[2][3] During the 1970s, LexisNexis pioneered the electronic accessibility of legal and journalistic documents.[4] As of 2006, the company has the world's largest electronic database for legal and public-records related information.[5]

Contents

History [edit]

LexisNexis office in Markham

Currently a division of Reed Elsevier,[6] LexisNexis was first a product of the Mead Data Central company.[3][5]

The Anglo-Dutch publishing company Reed Elsevier has owned LexisNexis and its predecessor company since 1994. At its inception in 1970, the database was named LEXIS by Mead Data Central (MDC), a subsidiary of the Mead Corporation. It was a continuation of an experiment organized by the Ohio State Bar in 1967.

On April 2, 1973, LEXIS launched publicly, offering full-text search in all Ohio and New York cases. In 1980, LEXIS completed its hand-keyed electronic archive of all U.S. federal and state cases. The NEXIS service, added that same year, gave journalists a searchable database of news articles.[7] LexisNexis' world headquarters is located in New York, New York, United States.[1][8]

When Toyota launched the Lexus line of luxury vehicles in 1987, Mead Data Central sued for trademark infringement on the grounds that consumers of upscale products (such as lawyers) would confuse "Lexus" with "Lexis". A market research survey asked consumers to identify the spoken word "Lexis". Survey results showed that a nominal number of people thought of the computerized legal search system; a similarly small number thought of Toyota's luxury car division.[9] A judge ruled against Toyota, and the company appealed the decision.[10][11] Mead lost on appeal in 1989 when the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit held that there was little chance of consumer confusion.[12] Today, the two companies have an amicable business relationship, and in 2002 implemented a joint promotion called "Win a Lexus on Lexis!"

In December 1994, Mead sold the LexisNexis system to Reed Elsevier for $1.5 billion. The U.S. state of Illinois subsequently audited Mead's income tax returns and charged Mead an additional $4 million in income tax and penalties for the sale of LexisNexis; Mead paid the tax under protest, then sued for a refund in an Illinois state court. On April 15, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with Mead that the Illinois courts had incorrectly applied the Court's precedents on whether Illinois could constitutionally apply its income tax to Mead, an out-of-state, Ohio-based corporation.[13] The Court reversed and remanded so that the lower courts could apply the correct test and determine whether Mead and Lexis were a "unitary" business.

In 2000, LexisNexis purchased RiskWise, a St. Cloud, Minnesota company.[14] In 2002 it acquired a Canadian research database company, Quicklaw. In 2004, Reed Elsevier Group, parent company of LexisNexis, purchased Seisint, Inc, of Boca Raton, Florida.[15] Seisint housed and operated Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX).

On March 9, 2005 LexisNexis announced the possible theft of personal information of some Seisint users. It was originally estimated that 32,000 users were affected,[16] but that number greatly increased to over 310,000.[17] Affected persons will be provided with free fraud insurance and credit bureau reports for a year. However, no reports of identity theft or fraud were discovered to have stemmed from the security breach.[citation needed]

Content offerings [edit]

LexisNexis services are delivered via two websites that require separate paid subscriptions.[18]

According to a company news release, LexisNexis hosts over 30 terabytes of content on its 11 mainframes (supported by over 300 midrange UNIX servers and nearly 1,000 Windows NT servers) at its main datacenter in Miamisburg, Ohio.[19]

The Lexis database contains current United States statutes and laws and a large volume of published case opinions dating from the 1770s to the present, as well as publicly available unpublished case opinions from 1980 on. In 2000, Lexis began building a library of briefs and motions.[20]

Lexis also has libraries of statutes, case judgments and opinions for jurisdictions such as France, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, South Africa and the United Kingdom as well as databases of law review and legal journal articles for countries for which materials are available.

Previously, LexisNexis had a stripped-down free version (known as LexisOne) but this has been discontinued and replaced by Lexis Communities,[21] which provides news and blogs across a variety of legal areas.

In the UK and Australia LexisNexis publishes magazines and journals, both in hard copy and online. Titles include Taxation Magazine and Lawyers Weekly.

Time Matters is a LexisNexis-branded software offering. Lexis for Microsoft Office is a LexisNexis-branded software offering that incorporates significant features from Dakota Legal Software's Citrus legal citation software for Bluebook.[22] Most law firms have moved away from the product which is poorly supported and often freezes.

Awards, recognition and criticism [edit]

In 2010 and 2011 the Human Rights Campaign recognized LexisNexis as a company that treats its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees well.[23]

Training magazine inducted LexisNexis into its "Training Top 125" list between 2007 and 2010. In 2008 the company was 26th on the list, rising 6 places from the previous year, but in 2009 it was 71st place and by 2010 was 105th.[24]

Criticism [edit]

In 2009 employee reviews surveyed by glassdoor.com led to LexisNexis being ranked "11th worst place to work in America".[25]

See also [edit]

References and footnotes [edit]

  1. ^ a b "Corporate HQ Location". 
  2. ^ Vance, Ashlee (January 25, 2010). "Legal Sites Plan Revamps as Rivals Undercut Price". The New York Times. 
  3. ^ a b "COMPANY NEWS; A NAME CHANGE IS PLANNED FOR MEAD DATA CENTRAL". The New York Times. December 2, 1994. 
  4. ^ Miller, Stephen (January 12, 2012). "For Future Reference, a Pioneer in Online Reading". The Wall Street Journal. 
  5. ^ a b "Lexis-Nexis founder Don Wilson dies". 
  6. ^ Gargan, Edward A. (October 6, 1994). "THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Reed-Elsevier Building Big Presence in the U.S.". The New York Times. 
  7. ^ Regarding the capital letters in the name; it was then standard to capitalize the names of online services.
  8. ^ "OMB LexisNexis world headquarters in New York, NY". 
  9. ^ A far greater number, although by no means a majority, thought of a television character; most thought of nothing at all.
  10. ^ James Risen (January 4, 1989). "Distinctiveness of 'Lexis' Trademark Cited Toyota Can't Call Car 'Lexus,' Judge Says". Los Angeles Times. 
  11. ^ Mead Data Cent. v. Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. 702 F.Supp. 1031 (1988)
  12. ^ Mead Data Cent., Inc. v. Toyota Motor Sales 875 F.2d 1026 (1989)
  13. ^ MeadWestvaco Corp. v. Illinois Dep't. of Revenue, 553 U.S. 16 (2008).
  14. ^ "COMPANY NEWS; NEXIS AGREES TO PURCHASE OF RISKWISE INTERNATIONAL". The New York Times. June 3, 2000. 
  15. ^ "COMPANY NEWS; REED ELSEVIER TO ACQUIRE SEISINT FOR $775 MILLION". The New York Times. July 15, 2004. 
  16. ^ "LexisNexis customer IDs stolen". CNN. 2005-03-09. Retrieved 2010-05-07. 
  17. ^ Silver, Caleb (2005-04-12). "LexisNexis acknowledges more ID theft". CNN. Retrieved 2010-05-07. 
  18. ^ Jennifer Peltz (June 4, 1999). "Surf your way into college". CNN. 
  19. ^ "Data Center Facts for LexisNexis". 
  20. ^ "LexisNexis Litigation Services Enhanced with Briefs, Motions, Pleadings" (Press release). Business Network. February 28, 2006. 
  21. ^ http://www.lexisnexis.com/community/portal/
  22. ^ "LexisNexis Enhances Lexis for Microsoft Office with Real-time Management of Quotes, Citations and Table of Authorities". LexisNexis. Retrieved 10 September 2012. 
  23. ^ For 2010 LGBT support recognition, see "Corporate Equality Index: A Report Card on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equality in Corporate America-2010; Appendix A. Corporate Equality Index Ratings and Breakdown" (pdf). hrc.org. 2010. p. 30. 
  24. ^ "Training Top 125 2008: Rankings 26-35" (pdf). managesmarter.com. p. 6. 
  25. ^ Wulfhorst, Ellen (December 16, 2009). "List of top U.S. places to work: survey". reuters.com. 

External links [edit]

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