Thomson Reuters Practical Law vs. Thomson Reuters Westlaw

PracticalLaw offers excellent Practice Notes, Checklists, Precedents, and Toolkits for a variety of practice areas - which is very helpful to in-house counsel and law clerks that are working on files across different practice areas. Less appropriate when there are already many resources available to me to help in drafting documents - then there is not much use to look up PLC.

Incentivized

Perhaps well-suited in enterprise agreements where many users need access to many areas, and a giant contract is cost effective. This was a good company to work with as a student and instructor where value was not my specific concern. I cannot speak to the value paid by the responsible party in that context.

• News articles.
• Specific content on areas of law.
• Research jury verdicts and dispositive motions decisions.

• The headnotes allow me to quickly read through the key aspects of the case.
• Keycites make for quick efficient searches.
• The flagging system is great for making sure the case is still good law.
• Ability to save highlighting and comments on cases makes for organized research.

Incentivized

• Some resources are more detailed and on point than others
• Competitors offer platforms that are more user-friendly
• Sometimes navigating back to an old resource takes a bit more time than other platforms

Incentivized

• The program logs me off rather quickly when I have a window open stagnant on Practical Law. As I don't believe Practical Law bills per minute of use, I wish it would stay open longer.
• Most of the corporate forms are still unavailable or not maintained in all 50 states. Would love to see practicioners like myself used as resources to get those updated and current.

Incentivized

There is no real competition

Incentivized

The specific product ordered was fine, but it was far too easy to mindlessly incur ancillary charges without warning. This is much less user friendly than other, similar providers of services such as LexisNexis. The Thomson Reuters Westlaw experience is not intuitive when compared to other, similar providers and ended up being less cost effective.

I was passed around like a hot potato and nameless responders were somewhat disrespectful and "snippy." There was no offer to resolve the issue I complained about, and I was basically made to feel as though I was lying about the problem. The solution was easy: fix my customized home screen to remove the possibility of wandering into a non-subscription area. This fix was never offered or pursued. Instead, I was offered the option of signing up for additional services.

Lexis Practice Advisor is an excellent alternative - but Practical Law has more comprehensive coverage of topics and practice areas - as well as more frequent updates to tools and checklists. Also, Practice Law integrates well with WestLaw which is great for having all the legal research and files centralized.

Incentivized

Like I said earlier, I previously used Lexis as the legal research tool. I did like Lexis because it was very easy to navigate, and you were able to utilize their Shepherds tool for case citations. However, I felt that their bank or library of cases, legal standards or precedents, and providing the user with the quality of case law needed was subpar. [Thomson Reuters] Westlaw far exceeds [its] competitors when it comes to the necessary elements needed for legal practice/research.

Incentivized

• Cost savings related to proactive training is easily in the hundreds of thousands.
• Having various types of content available in one platform makes research efficient.
• I have used Practical Law to search for judgments and lessons learned from my training sessions for our leadership.

• Accident report does not have auto insurance information, but [Thomson Reuters] Westlaw was able to locate information needed to make sure a client's injuries were taken care of
• Case Citations in response to defendants' motions in trial citing decisions that are against our clients

Incentivized