• 31 Mar 2011

AALL Names WestlawNext New Product of the Year

American Association of Law Libraries recognizes WestlawNext for innovation, improving the legal research process

EAGAN, Minn., March 31, 2011 — The American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) announced that it has named WestlawNext™ as its New Product of the Year for 2011. WestlawNext is the next-generation legal research service from Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals.

“Being named New Product of the Year by AALL is especially meaningful to my team and to me,” said Mike Dahn, chief marketing and product development officer, Westlaw U.S., and former law librarian. ”Hundreds of law librarians in law firms, corporate law departments, government organizations and law schools touched the product during its five years of development, and their input and feedback were critical to the innovative design and functionality of WestlawNext.”

For instance, the advanced search capabilities of WestlawNext (www.westlawnext.com) help organizations be more efficient by allowing busy legal professionals to more quickly, easily and completely retrieve the needed information from a single search. Also, workflow tools enable researchers to organize and store important research and share it across the organization.

“WestlawNext fits how the next generation of legal professionals is looking at research,” said Michelle Cosby, Faculty Services Librarian at North Carolina Central University School of Law, and chair of the AALL New Product Award committee. “Our committee found WestlawNext visually appealing and easy to learn how to use. We also liked the tools on WestlawNext that allow researchers to share research folders, highlight text and add notes to documents.”

Anne Ellis, senior director of Librarian Relations for Thomson Reuters, believes that as technology continues to improve legal information services, the role of the library professional will become even more critical to the sharing, leveraging and management of information to optimally benefit both legal organizations and their clients. “Law librarians are the very heart of legal research and have been key in bringing legal research and technology together, especially now in the digital age,” she said.

“The WestlawNext team is honored to be accorded this recognition from the customers who best understand our service and its value,” Dahn added. “We look forward to continuing our work with AALL and the entire law librarian community to advance technologies that make legal research faster, more efficient and more comprehensive.”

The AALL New Product of the Year award honors new commercial information products that enhance or improve existing law library services or procedures, or innovative products that improve access to legal information, the legal research process, or procedures for technical processing of library materials. The formal award presentation will occur during the 104th AALL Annual Meeting & Conference in Philadelphia, July 23-26, 2011.

About the American Association of Law Libraries
The American Association of Law Libraries was founded in 1906 to promote and enhance the value of law libraries to the legal and public communities, to foster the profession of law librarianship, and to provide leadership in the field of legal information. Today, with over 5,000 members, the Association represents law librarians and related professionals who are affiliated with a wide range of institutions: law firms; law schools; corporate legal departments; courts; and local, state and federal government agencies. For more information, visit www.aallnet.org.

Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals.  We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, healthcare and science and media markets, powered by the world's most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs 55,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. For more information, go to www.thomsonreuters.com.

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