Whats the difference between Lexis, Westlaw and just using Google?
Lexis and Westlaw are fee-based aggregators. That means they are repositories of full-text sources published by others. Because they are fee-based and tightly controlled, they each contain highly sophisticated indexing and search engine features, are kept updated, have excellent customer support and training, and contain a broad spectrum of proprietary information. Google is not a database of information, but a search engine that identifies where certain information could be located within websites it crawls and indexes. It is a sophisticated search engine. It is kept current itself, but has little control over the content of the websites it crawls. It is a free service, but often located information resident on fee-based sites, that if the user is not a subscriber, is off limits to the researcher. It retrieves information without any of the editorial controls exercised by Lexis and Westlaw. It is widely considered by Legal researchers that Google and Westlaw, Lexis and other commercia
