Comments on: WestlawNext Preview: Product and Pricing

By: Walt

Walt — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:58:03 +0000

Nothing the merry marketeers at Westlaw have done since my first encounter in the 80′s has ever reminded me of even-handed treatment. So. Is it a great product? Don’t care.

By: Practice Management

Practice Management — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 16:30:10 +0000

It was pretty pricey when I checked it out.

By: Kennedy-Mighell Report, Episode #22: iPad: Gadget or Game Changer? | The Kennedy-Mighell Report

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 03:22:57 +0000

[...] WestlawNext Preview: Product and Pricing [...]

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 18:16:21 +0000

I contacted Westlaw to consider signing up for an account and was very unhappy with the experience.

Using an internet-conferencing program, a Westlaw rep was able to give me a good presentation of WestlawNext.

Anyway, when the rep finally told me about the pricing, she gave me one price, but then told me that there was a special price that was good only for the current month. That basically ended my interest in Westlaw, as I didn’t enjoy the feeling that I was being treated as a sucker who would fall for such a high-pressure sales gimmick. I had a fairly lengthy discussion with the sales rep about my objection, although I was perfectly polite, as was the sales rep.

The very next day I received an email from this rep, from which I quote:

“I have talked extensively with my boss about earning your business.

“This pricing is especially created and designed by my manager, Jonathan – but he has asked for a time frame of Thursday by 3PM CST.

“I have explained our previous conversation that you do not take kindly to sales tactics or games and that these are not my ways of selling either!!!

“With that being said – he’s the bad guy in this – but he is really offering you a great deal for a lot less to earn your business this month.

“Because this is a final notice I personally want to offer you some free books ($1600 in value) of your choice (95% of our books I can offer you) and postpone your 1st month WestlawNext billing to end of December.”

Apparently, Westlaw preferred that I look elsewhere for my legal-research needs, and its preference has been granted.

By: D. Todd Smith

D. Todd Smith — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 15:08:53 +0000

I meet with my West rep on Friday and will follow up on how it goes.

By: Lisa Solomon

Lisa Solomon — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 13:13:33 +0000

Scott, thanks so much for sharing your experience with us. It’s exactly what I expected, in light of both West’s responses to questioning (described above) and my own contract negotiations (described in many of my recent posts).

I look forward to hearing about the ultimate result of your negotiation.

By: H. Scott Leviant

H. Scott Leviant — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 07:14:20 +0000

We just met with our Westlaw rep today. When pressed on pricing, she was very evasive. When “deposed” for an answer, she finally said that WestlawNext was running “about 20%” above the Westlaw.com price for similar content. She suggested, but did not exactly state, that we would have no choice but to increase the databases covered in our subscription to have the upgrade. This appears to me to be an attempt to bury the price increase under a service expansion. What is the marginal cost of access to an extra database from Westlaw’s point of view? I assume it is nearly zero. Any dollars they get from us are almost pure gravy, other than some bandwidth expense, which isn’t that high.

I am going to suggest to our office manager that she give Westlaw a take-it-or-leave-it offer of 0% price increase and move to WestlawNext or we abandon Westlaw entirely at the end of our contract. I suspect that they want the account (about $2,500 a month) more than they want the small price bump for WestlawNext.

By: WestlawNext: Legal Research Goes Human « Technology at Albany Law School

WestlawNext: Legal Research Goes Human « Technology at Albany Law School — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 19:34:30 +0000

[...] Lisa Solomon discusses product and pricing. [...]

By: Amy Kleinpeter

Amy Kleinpeter — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:56:32 +0000

I was quoted about $70 increase for WestlawNEXT, I changed my plan though to get ALLSTATE and ALLFED instead of just California so now I can research to my heart’s content for $100 increase. I do think it is worth it (obviously, I signed the contract) both to not have to deal with database selection in search and also to save research in folders and also to have the ability to see a portion of documents that are out of plan before choosing to click or not.
However, I did have to wonder “How did they just figure out how to make a clean and pretty interface now? Nice of them to keep the cheaper version ugly!!”

By: Lisa Solomon

Lisa Solomon — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:37:22 +0000

Fantastic news, Robert! I’m still waiting to get full database information from my rep’s sales manager.