The City is a subscriber to Westlaw, a legal publication and online database service that provides a multitude of legal resources, including statutory material, case law, legal forms, treatises and other research materials. The subscription is available to designated City employees, including the City Attorney and Captain David O'Neil in the Police Department (who is also a licensed attorney) along with other users in the Police Department and at the Brentwood Library. The online content includes Westlaw's "PeopleMap" service, which allows quick searches of consolidated public records related to persons of interest in Police Department investigations. In addition to online databases through Westlaw, the City also maintains subscriptions to print versions of some legal publications produced by the same publisher.
The current Westlaw subscription agreement was approved in 2014 and expires in May, 2017. The current annual cost for the City's subscription package is $2,280 per month, or $27,360 plus any additional transactional fees for access to items not covered by the base subscription. Under the proposed renewal plan, the City's subscription fee would be increased slightly, but access would be expanded to include many materials that are not included in the current plan and the additional transactional costs would be eliminated. The cost for the first year under the new plan will be $2,563 per month, or $30,756 annually. The term of the agreement runs for five years, with a 3% annual cost increase to be effective after the first year.
Under the proposed new five-year agreement, the following features will be included:
- Unlimited searching, downloading and printing of every treatise, practice guide and checklist available on Westlaw (excluding some third party content providers.)
- Over 100,000 litigation and transactional forms.
- Access to court documents, including briefs, trial court orders, pleadings, motions and memorandums.
- Attorney and judge profiles.
- 50-state surveys, for researching how other states are handling issues.
- Over 1000 newspapers, magazines, journals and news wires.
- Graphical statutes display option, showing the history of a statute.
- Annual onsite training at no charge.
- Unlimited one-on-one training via webex or telephone.
Westlaw is recognized as the premier source for on-line legal publications and legal databases, and its products and services are essential for conducting expeditious and accurate legal research. Since no other publisher offers the same range of materials and research flexibility, West Publishing Corporation is effectively a sole source provider.
Please contact the City Attorney if you have any questions.
|