For case law: it's my view that we've reached the point, with at least the major Commonweath LIIs, that nobody who knows the basics of the subject matter needs to start with the commercial services for current case law.

These days, where case law is involved, I head for eCarswell or QL just for older cases of where I want a headnote. (I assuming that, just as here, the other Commonwealth courts send their judgments to the local LIIs at the same time as they're sent to commercial publsihers.

What this means, I think, is that the future of the commercial publishers has to be in the value added material: analyses, summaries, commentaries, journals, reviews etc. A good example, for case law, is the excellent notes the various Carswell specialty reporters often have or had. Of course, if one isn't going to get paid for work, it would be better provided to one's jurisdiction's LII.

David

It should be pointed out that charging for student access to Westlaw or Lexis has long been the practice in the US. As Richard has pointed out, the "long honeymoon" is over. This development was probably inevitable once Quicklaw left private ownership.

Bear in mind that so far Westlaw/ECarswell has not charged anything. And that there are other alternatives provided by other publishers such as Maritime Law Book and CCH which should be taken more seriously.

As for CANLII, it should by now I hope be considered as a real alternative to the commerical products, and as law students need to know how to use it and what it is good for, just like we have always done for the commercial vendors.

The one major concern I have in all this is that we are back to having duplication of services and reporting, which has plagued legal publishing in the common law world since the nineteenth century, and has particularly been a concern in Canada.

The idea of directing the funds to support CANLII development is a brilliant one, and I hope that the schools give it some serious thought.

Aside from the preceived poor LNQL business decision, perhaps not having Quicklaw will not be a big deal to law students. Now, if they didn't have access to treatises…oh wait – LNQL does have textbook content. I wonder what the good folks at Irwin Law are thinking about this decision.

Second tought: before I fully verbalize my toughts on this seemingly bad marketing move, I wonder what motivated QL/Lex to adopt such a strategy? We could perhaps think of students were abusing the system, but would a nominal charge of $50.00 prevent any further abuse if that is the case?

Mark, any idea on the motives behind this?

Free QL for law schools has been the best marketing dollars that QL/Lex has ever spent.

There's (essentially) nothing that a LLB/JD student can't do using Westlaw/CanLii/Hein that they would need QL for. As a student, I'd be very upset if my school was putting tuition dollars toward QL if those other services were available cost-free.

Perhaps QL will go back to free student accounts when they notice the impact of several cohorts of new lawyers who find it easier to do research without them.