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December 07, 2005
The legal research racket
In this interesting post, the Wired GC discusses the potential negative impact of Web 2.0 on high-cost legal research services such as Westlaw and Lexis/Nexis, and then passes along this anecdote that should give pause to the legal research vendors:
Then as I am about to leave my office last night and head home to complete this post, I opened a November 30, 2005 letter from an SVP of West. It was one of those customer-friendly letters you get these days. You know, the sort that starts out “Dear Westlaw Subscriber” and goes on to state:“To help us continue upgrading the Westlaw content and functionality that helps you carry out top-quality research, we will be increasing rates for Westlaw usage by an average of six percent (6%) as of January 1, 2006.”The price increase helps me? I set my 2006 budget months ago. For most technology-driven companies, upgrades typically lower costs for customers. No mention of any enhancements, either.
Memo to West: a form letter that slaps a long-term customer with a 30 day notice of a unilateral price increase is very much Law 1.0. Risking driving a customer away is rather ignoring Law 2.0.
Read the whole post.
Posted by Tom at December 7, 2005 06:20 AM
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