Montreal Gazette Profile of LexUM

The Montreal Gazette yesterday published a profile of LexUM, the outfit that operates the free legal information service CanLII and that also publishes the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada.

The article briefly explores plans by LexUM to expand its business into the private legal market. LexUM recently went private, severing its ties with the University of Montreal.

Today Lexum still operates CanLII – a go-to site frequently consulted by lawyers, judges and other legal professionals as well as members of the public – but has set its sights on making inroads into the lucrative and burgeoning market for legal information management both in Canada and around the world (…)

On the legal practice front, Poulin said Lexum wants to use its technology to provide law firms with systems, say through an intranet, to provide easy access to all internal briefs and notes on cases, linked to a CanLII compilation of pertinent case law and legislation.

Poulin said statistics estimate lawyers in Canada each spend an average of $2,000 a year on legal information, a market that could easily be worth $15 million to $20 million considering there are 80,000 lawyers in Canada. Another $40 million to $50 million is spent by institutions that use legal information systems to manage their internal knowledge and also need to be able to keep up to date with legislation.