Deal will expand legal research tools through Quicklaw, Law Bulletin

Deal will expand legal research tools through Quicklaw, Law Bulletin By a Law Bulletin staff writer The Law Bulletin Publishing Co. and Quicklaw Inc. have formed an alliance to offer a comprehensive legal research service. By combining the products already available through the Law Bulletin company with those of the Canadian enterprise, the content-sharing agreement will give subscribers access to a broad range of information including case law and statutes, as well as public record, court and topical information. Subscribers to LBPC's AccessPlus service will gain electronic access to state and federal case law, statutes and regulations throughout the United States. Officials of the two companies were to make a formal announcement of the alliance on Saturday at the American Association of Law Libraries meeting in Philadelphia. "The combined offerings of the companies will create a comprehensive, high-quality legal research system," said LBPC President Neil T. Breen. "AccessPlus, with Quicklaw, gives Illinois lawyers a unique combination of local, state and federal information, much of which is not available from any other single source," Breen said. Perhaps most advantageous to AccessPlus subscribers is that the United States Code and Code of Federal Regulations material provided by Quicklaw is the most up-to-date version available anywhere, say representatives of both companies. "They are more current than anyone else anywhere," Alan B. Dingle, Quicklaw's vice president for marketing, said of the federal statutes and regulations provided by his company. The new service also offers international legal material from Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and countries in Africa and the Caribbean that derive their legal systems from British common law, Dingle said. Pricing details are still being worked out, but the service is expected to be offered to customers at a significantly lower cost than services such as Lexis and Westlaw, said David Glynn, LBPC's director of product development. At first, the combined materials will be available through the existing AccessPlus system, but the plan is to develop an Internet site that will let customers log in simply by calling up a Web address, Breen said. Current customers of Quicklaw will benefit from the alliance by gaining access to a comprehensive database of Illinois case law and information about the Chicago legal community. Quicklaw customers in foreign countries such as Antigua, Israel, Guyana and South Africa are interested in the U.S. legal system, Dingle said, because case law here has already addressed a number of issues that haven't been decided elsewhere. "In the Caribbean and Africa and South American, for example, their legal system and their reporting system aren't as developed as ours," Dingle said. "Because the law is developing in all of those countries, they need to look at how it's developing in other countries" -- particularly concerning technology issues -- "and access to online information is incredibly affordable for them." Another factor promoting worldwide interest in U.S. law is the globalization of law firms and international trade, Dingle continued. People are interested in other countries' laws because, "as the world becomes a smaller place, everyone needs access to everyone else's laws in order to carry on business." As of this weekend, Quicklaw customers abroad will be able to read articles from past issues of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and its sister publication, Chicago Lawyer magazine, online, Dingle said. "So lawyers in Uganda could be sitting down and reading the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin." Quicklaw, a private corporation based in Kingston, Ontario, was the first company in the world to begin compiling a database of case law to offer to subscribers online, according to Dingle. Today, nearly 27 years later, Quicklaw operates about 1,900 online databases throughout the world and has "about 90 percent of the market" in Canada, Dingle said. So the company is seeking to increase its penetration elsewhere. Quicklaw made its entry into the U.S. market last fall, when it purchased Current Legal Resources Inc., based in Bethpage, N.Y., Dingle said. The company is now known as Quicklaw America Inc. LBPC is a 146-year-old corporation; Lanning MacFarland Jr. is its chairman.