LexisNexis

LexisNexis
Type Subsidiary
Industry Publishing
Founded 1977
Headquarters Dayton, Ohio[1]
United States
Parent Reed Elsevier
Website www.lexisnexis.com

LexisNexis Group is a company providing computer-assisted legal research services. In 2006 it had the world's largest electronic database for legal and public-records related information.[2] LexisNexis world headquarters is located in Dayton, Ohio, United States.[1][3]

Contents

History

Currently a division of Reed Elsevier, LexisNexis was first a product of the Mead Data Central company.[2]

The Anglo-Dutch publishing company Reed Elsevier has owned LexisNexis and its predecessor company since 1994. At its inception in 1970, the database was named LEXIS by Mead Data Central (MDC), a subsidiary of the Mead Corporation. It was a continuation of an experiment organized by the Ohio State Bar in 1967. On April 2, 1973, LEXIS launched publicly, offering full-text searching of all Ohio and New York cases. In 1980, LEXIS completed its hand-keyed electronic archive of all U.S. federal and state cases. The NEXIS service, added that same year, gave journalists a searchable database of news articles. (Notice the capital letters in the name; it was then standard to capitalize the names of online services.)

Trademark lawsuit

When Toyota launched the Lexus line of luxury vehicles in 1987, Mead Data Central sued for trademark infringement on the grounds that consumers of upscale products (such as lawyers) would confuse "Lexus" with "Lexis". A market research survey asked consumers to identify the spoken word "Lexis". Survey results showed that a nominal number of people thought of the computerized legal search system; a similarly small number thought of Toyota's luxury car division. A judge ruled against Toyota, and the company appealed the decision.[4] Mead lost on appeal in 1989 when the Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit held that there was little chance of consumer confusion. Today, the two companies have an amicable business relationship, and in 2002 implemented a joint promotion called "Win a Lexus on Lexis!"

M&A

In 2000, LexisNexis purchased RiskWise, a St. Cloud, Minnesota company. In 2002 it acquired a Canadian research database company, Quicklaw. Two years later it bought Seisint, Inc, of Boca Raton, Florida. Seisint housed and operated Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX).

Seisint information breach

On March 9, 2005 LexisNexis announced the possible theft of personal information of some Seisint users. It was originally estimated that 32,000 users were affected,[5] but that number greatly increased to over 310,000.[6] Affected persons will be provided with free fraud insurance and credit bureau reports for a year. However, no reports of identity theft or fraud were discovered to have stemmed from the security breach.

Content offerings

LexisNexis services are delivered via two websites that require separate paid subscriptions.[7]

According to a company news release, LexisNexis hosts over 30 terabytes of content on its 11 mainframes (supported by over 300 midrange UNIX servers and nearly 1,000 Windows NT servers) at its main datacenter in Miamisburg, Ohio.[8]

Lexis.com

The Lexis database contains current United States statutes and laws and a large volume of published case opinions dating from the 1770s to the present, as well as publicly available unpublished case opinions from 1980 on. In 2000, Lexis began building a library of briefs and motions.[9]

Lexis also has libraries of statutes, case judgments and opinions for jurisdictions such as France, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, South Africa and the United Kingdom as well as databases of law review and legal journal articles for countries for which materials are available.

As part of its current publishing deal with the California court system, Lexis has a stripped-down free site, available from the California Courts web site, for the public to search California opinions. It also has a stripped-down free site, LexisOne, that has case law available for state and federal jurisdictions for the last ten years as well as all United States Supreme Court cases.

Nexis.com

Nexis.com makes available content from more than 20,000 global news sources, company & industry intelligence providers, biographical and reference sources, intellectual property records, public records, legislative and regulatory filings and legal materials. Nexis offers a global, multi-lingual content collection with an archive dating to the 1970s for some sources.

Publishing

In the UK and Australia LexisNexis publishes magazines and journals, both in hard copy and online. Titles include Taxation Magazine and Lawyers Weekly

Software

Time Matters is a LexisNexis-branded software offering.

Awards and recognition

LexisNexis has been praised for supporting LGBT rights as well as for being a company that provides its employees with on-the-job training.

LGBT equality

In both 2010 and 2011 Human Rights Campaign recognized LexisNexis as a company that treats its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employees well.[10]

Employee training

Training magazine inducted LexisNexis into its "Training Top 125" list between 2007 and 2010. In 2008 the company reached 26th on the list, rising 6 places from the previous year, but in 2009 it only managed 71st place and by 2010 was 105th.[11]

Criticism

In 2009 employee reviews surveyed by glassdoor.com lead to LexisNexis being ranked "11th worst place to work in America".[12]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Corporate HQ Location". http://support.lexisnexis.com/contact_us.asp. 
  2. ^ a b "Lexis-Nexis founder Don Wilson dies". http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2006/12/01/Lexis-Nexis-founder-Don-Wilson-dies/UPI-36121164992489/. 
  3. ^ "OMB LexisNexis world headquarters in Dayton". http://www.ohiomeansbusiness.com/build-your-business/ohio-regions/dayton-western-ohio.php. 
  4. ^ James Risen (January 4, 1989). "Distinctiveness of 'Lexis' Trademark Cited Toyota Can't Call Car 'Lexus,' Judge Says". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1989-01-04/business/fi-194_1_lexus-cars. 
  5. ^ "LexisNexis customer IDs stolen". CNN. 2005-03-09. http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/09/news/midcaps/lexisnexis/index.htm. Retrieved 2010-05-07. 
  6. ^ Silver, Caleb (2005-04-12). "LexisNexis acknowledges more ID theft". CNN. http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/12/technology/personaltech/lexis/?cnn=yes. Retrieved 2010-05-07. 
  7. ^ Jennifer Peltz (June 4, 1999). "Surf your way into college". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9906/04/college.idg/index.html?iref=allsearch. 
  8. ^ "Data Center Facts for LexisNexis". http://www.lexisnexis.com/presscenter/mediakit/datacenter.asp. 
  9. ^ "LexisNexis® Litigation Services Enhanced with Briefs, Motions, Pleadings" (Press release). Business Network. February 28, 2006. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2006_Feb_28/ai_n26775689/. 
  10. ^ For 2010 LGBT support recognition, see "Corporate Equality Index: A Report Card on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equality in Corporate America-2010; Appendix A. Corporate Equality Index Ratings and Breakdown" (pdf). hrc.org. 2010. p. 30. http://www.hrc.org/documents/HRC_Corporate_Equality_Index_2010.pdf. 
  11. ^ "Training Top 125 2008: Rankings 26-35" (pdf). managesmarter.com. p. 6. http://www.managesmarter.com/managesmarter/images/pdfs/trg_20080201_top125ranking.pdf. 
  12. ^ "List of top U.S. places to work: survey". reuters.com. December 16, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BF0MV20091216?pageNumber=4. 

External links