"No other state has a legal research resource with the depth of content that LawReader provides for Kentucky." 

 See for yourself, go to:  INDEX OF LAWREADER'S DIGEST OF KENTUCKY LAW

                                          LawReader Headquarters on Christmas Eve 2004

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For a tutorial  of our new case law data base please click on: TUTORIAL This shows the many new features.

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                    What is LawReader?   Is it right for you?

LawReader is unlike any other legal research resource. We attempt to provide resources for the actual practice of law, as it is practiced by the greatest number of lawyers. New content is added daily. Judges, attorneys, and law professors send us content and we share it with you. We provide quick access to thousands of legal topics, issues, and resources. 

 A common comment we hear from users, is "LawReader allows me to compete with the big law firms!" We have to agree with that comment.

ACCESSIBILITY:

    Of course we are an online legal research portal.  That means that wherever you are in the world (with internet connection of course) you can access our data bases. Judges use LawReader from their courtrooms, Senior Judges who must travel from county to county can access LawReader from any courthouse or from their home since they are not provided offices.

   Lawyers love the fact that they can work from their office, their home, or when they have that important case out of town. 

   We also believe that the most interesting use of LawReader will be in courtroom during actual trials.  Just take your laptop to court, and schedule your hearing dates and trial dates by accessing your calendar, during hearings call up citations quoted by your opponent to see if they have it right, or check out the exact rule of evidence or authority you need to win that argument for admission of the important evidence.

    With courthouses starting to add wi-fi hotspots in courtrooms, the use of LawReader will be easier than ever.  Some users take advantage of wireless cards by Cingular (AT&T), Verizon or Sprint to access the internet wherever they are.  Those  companies charge about $80 a month for unlimited usage (this includes cell phone service minutes). Some have plans that cost as little as $29.95 a month.  We believe that the new Cingular system has the greatest coverage in Kentucky. However Verizon and Sprint both work fine in the larger metropolitan areas.  Verizon has just introduced a new Broadband wireless program for $69 a month...we use this at LawReader...and you get very fast downloads.  You can actually surf the internet with the Verizon wireless broadband service, while you are driving down I-75. (We reccomend this for passengers only.)

CONTENT:

   No other resource puts as much content under the hood as LawReader.  We sometimes encounter users who just can’t believe we can do this for the low cost of the service but it’s a fact.  Here is a general description of our content. We point out that with over 6000 different topics and features you can only learn all of them by actually using LawReader over time.

 Case Law:

We have a case law data base containing the appellate decisions of all 50 states.   We have the decisions of all Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court, and all Federal District Courts ( the U.S District Courts data base lists cases released by the courts...not all District Courts release their rulings.)

 For Kentucky we have the decisions of the Court of Appeals and the Ky. Sup. Court, and we also include unreported cases.  Many of these unreported decisions provide valuable guidance in the direction the law is heading, and provide authorities to support their rulings which are reported …so they have great value to you.

  So if you are from Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, California, or wherever, you will find LawReader’s case law data base of tremendous value.

   To use case law to find the law, you can search for cases by their citation or by use of natural language search.  Just type in “curtilage” and all cases using that term will come up. 

    With West, Lexis, Lotus you generally get their best price (which is still at least twice that of LawReader’s) but get a watered down package that only allows you to access the case law of one state and one Federal Circuit Court of Appeals jurisdiction.  Access to other states or Circuits can add literally thousands of dollars of extra charges to your bill. LawReader has no extra charges or limitations.  We say 50 states and you get 50 states all for one fixed monthly fee.

We are told that West is offering certain "bundles" of services for around $180 a month, and this still requires extra charges for out -of- bundle usage.  We see that Lexis charges as much as $9.00 to download a single case.  No wonder LawReader has users in over 110 Kentucky cities.

Rules of Procedure:

We provide access to the Civil Rules, Criminal Rules and Rules of Evidence of all states, and the corresponding Federal Rules.  LawReader is in the process of upgrading all rules of procedure and evidence rules.  Updated annotations are provided for the Penal Code, the Civil Rules of Procedure, the Criminal Rules of Procedure, the Rules of Evidence, and selected chapters of the KRS such as Family Law, Juvenile Law, Motor Vehicle Reparations Act, and we are actively adding extensive annotations to many other topics and laws.

Statutes:

We provide access to the Codes and Statutes of all 50 states and the U.S. Code. 

We have annotated all 27,000 Kentucky statutes.

Tutorials:

We provide how to tips and articles on hundreds of legal topics.  More are added daily.  At the last count we had 4700 different articles.   So many legal issues are already researched with time saving analysis, and authorities at your fingertips.

One of our users told us, that he loves the fact that we not only show the black letter law, we show how to practice the law.  For example take a look at
ADOPTION PRACTICE & FORMS - KY.  This feature contains a tutorial about the correct procedures to follow, and then provides almost every pleading form you will need. 

 Topics that we don’t cover today, will surely be added in the future.  Topics that are not complete will be enhanced in the future. We invite you to suggest issues and topics for inclusion in our data base. Many of out best features have been suggested by users.

Standards of Proof:

We provide a topic that lists hundreds of authorities which concisely show you the standard of proof required to get to the jury on many different topics.  Does an issue require preponderance of the evidence, clear and convincing proof, or does the beyond a reasonable doubt standard apply? What is the basic elements of particular legal theories?  Look here.

This includes standards of appellate review.  Want to know what yardstick the Court of Appeals is supposed to follow to review a particular issue, check here.  Need to know who has the Burden of Proof?.  Look here ...we have it.

Evidence Digest:

We break evidence issues down to their simply components, and then provide a massive alphabetical listing of evidence issues with authorities.  This is very useful during the course of a trial or hearing, and will make you look like a legal whiz when you show the court the answer to a difficult evidence issue…and quote the current authorities.

Practice and Procedure Tips, Tools and Resources.

This feature is an alphabetical hyperlinked index which compiles all topics related to civil and criminal procedure, and backed up with tips and tools to accomplish those objectives.  It allows you to search for the topics and issues you are seeking in lighting speed.

Forms:  

What can we say?  We have at last count access to over 83,000 legal forms.  Deeds, mortgages, wills, condominium project deeds, corporate forms and minute forms, employment contracts, fee contracts, settlement forms, and hundreds of pleading forms, motions and sample court orders.  Divorce forms, Adoption forms, probate forms…and on and on.  You can copy our boiler plate, paste it into your word processor and edit to meet the needs of your client.

Medical Library:

One of the country’s leading medical malpractice firms helped us to design our medical library.  Learn the correct procedures for different types of surgery, medical terms, drug effects, addresses of hospitals, and much, much more.

Latin Legal Dictionary - Quotations - Language Translation:

Want to add a little attitude to your brief?  Use our library of latin legal terms to impress the judge. Of course we have links to Quotations, Writer's tools, Dictionaries, and language translation resources.  You can insert a letter or phrase in English and instantly have it translated into Spanish, French, German, Russian and many other languages...or translate foreign terms into English.

Brief's Library:

We provide access to thousands of legal briefs actually used in courts all over the U.S.  You can use these to locate authorities, study the format in which they are presented, and to discover novel issues to present in your own motions and briefs.

Weekly Decisions of  the Ky. Court of Appeals – Supreme Court:

Every Friday the Ky. Court of Appeals issues their decisions.  We post those decisions immediately and usually within 24 hours have a synopsis of every decision, published or unpublished.  This allows you to quickly scroll through each weeks decisions and if you see a case that applies to your area of practice, you can with one click read the full text of the case.   This service alone will almost pay for your annual membership when compared to the services that provide you twice monthly summaries and updates.    Those other services usually don’t include unpublished decision or worker’s comp. decisions but we do.

And so much more!

We have dictionaries, language translators, maps, phone directories, court dockets, weather reports, financial market data, travel tips, sports, and many lifestyle resources that will be useful to you.  Our founder started designing LawReader by going through every drawer in his desk.  Mortgage calculation info? Vacation resources?  List of objections to make?  Favorite forms and pleadings?  Everything he had in his desk provided inspiration for our area of focus and inspired inclusion of Life Style Enhancement links and resources.  This will save you many hours of surfing on the internet by access these resources in our FREE AREA.

HIGH FOCUSED ON KENTUCKY LAW – Does that mean others won’t find us useful?

LawReader is a Kentucky based company and so naturally we focus on Kentucky Law.  This does not mean that our service is not of great value to lawyers anywhere.  Of course it is…and many of the procedures we use in Ky. are common to all jurisdictions.  This means of course that we are of greatest value to those who practice in Kentucky, but with the case law, statutes, rules of all states, you can’t say we only focus on Kentucky law.  We read every decision of the Ky. Ct. of Appeals and Ky. Supreme Court and you will be surprised to learn how much law these courts cite from sister states.  So lawyers everywhere still get a great value from LawReader.  The case law data base alone is well worth the monthly subscription fee.

Our business concept is to take one state at a time and provide content for that state with a depth not provided by the large services who try to sell to the whole U.S. market.  We can’t do all fifty states at first, but by developing resources one state at a time, and not going to the next state until we get the first state done right…we will soon be a big guy ourselves!  We started close to home in Kentucky, and are already adding content for Ohio, Tennessee, and Indiana.  But Kentucky remains our major target audience.  No other state has a legal research resource with the depth of content that LawReader provides for Kentucky.

IS LAWREADER OF USE ONLY TO LAWYERS?

The answer to that is no. Our users include clerks, para legals, police officers, businessmen, students and researchers who wish to write about the law or research legal issue on a national basis.  Are you an author who wants to get the law right for your novel or thesis?  Then LawReader is the answer.

PRICING:

We charge $34.95 a month per lawyer for unlimited access to LawReader.  If you wish to save 10%, then you can pay for one year in advance.  We will discuss group rate pricing if you can get together at least five other users to contract with you.  Frankly, this monthly price is going to be raised in the near future…when we don’t know yet, but our prices are going up, and to continue to provide additional content, we will need to raise prices probably in 2005.  You can lock in your pricing for at least a year by choosing the yearly option.  Monthly contracts have a monthly guaranteed price.  We will provide advance notice of any price increase…but get ready…the cost of everything is going up.  We don’t want to scare you, any price increase will be moderate and incremental.  Our business plan commits us to remain the best value on the market.

Our special pricing of $34.95 a month is limited to lawyers licensed in Ky. and Ky. residents.  Others must be billed according to our national pricing plan which is located on the Home Page.

COUNTY LAW LIBRARIES:

The law provides for funding for each county to maintain a county law library.  The best value for these public dollars is clearly LawReader.com.  Instead of spending these funds on books that get lost or damaged, why not buy a license from LawReader for a computer located in the County Law Library.  There is simply no great value available.  Call us about pricing for your county.  We only need you to provide the computer and the internet connection, and we will install and set up your equipment.  In one county we also assisted them in setting up a Wi-Fi hot spot that allows users throughout the courthouse to access LawReader wirelessly.  This means that attorneys and judges in the courtroom, can log on to LawReader during hearings and trials, and never be without these valuable resources.

LENGTH OF CONTRACT:

The minimum contract is one month.  If you choose to pay for one year in advance, and receive a 10% price reduction,  then it is one year.  When you sign up online, the options will be presented to you.  If you sign up for a monthly contract, then your credit card will be automatically billed every 30 days for the monthly membership fee.  With a monthly contract you can quit simply by sending us an e-mail.  We don’t split fees for months for which have already been paid, but we will terminate any further recurring billings. No arguments, no hassles, no arm twisting.  Our users tell us of the horrors of trying to terminate a contract with West or Lexis, and we won’t put you through that meat grinder. 

HELP:

 If you need help on a topic and can’t find it on LawReader, give us a call and as soon as possible, we will put someone on to the project.  This story has been repeated over and over again.  We have answered user requests for adding a new topic in some cases within hours.  Our users are providing us valuable advice on the direction we should be going, so we always are eager to hear your suggestions.  Did anyone from Lexis every give you this option?

Our small company approach means that we try to help anyone who calls or e-mails us.  Whether it is a legal research question, a technical problem or whatever, we will try to help if we can.  We must qualify this by stating we don’t practice law or give legal advice.  You are the legal whiz, we are just here to help you obtain the materials upon which you must use your own legal training to evaluate and form legal opinions.

SHOULD YOU QUIT YOUR CURRENT SERVICE?

 Maybe you subscribe to West or Lexis…and many of our users do…should you quit?  We don’t suggest that for everyone.  Frankly, they have some resources we don’t have, and you may need them from time to time.  We find that law firms that want to keep West or Lexis, and want to control their costs, find it very useful to use LawReader to do out of contract jurisdiction searches on LawReader.

One user told us he left Lexis after he got a bill for $5000 for research done of Missouri law for a P.I. case he had there.  Missouri was not in his Lexis contract, and the law clerk doing the research didn’t appreciate or understand the hidden charges for going out of the one jurisdiction their contract provided.

So for those who wish to keep their current service, an additional $34.95 a month for LawReader is certainly not prohibitive, and it may save you thousands as a back up. And if you are dealing with Kentucky law, we challenge any of the big guys to compete with us on the quantity and specificity of our Kentucky content.  Most of the larger services focus on corporate law and international law.  They beat us there we admit, but if you want to do a divorce, get help with an adoption,  draft a property settlement or file a workmen’s comp. claim in Kentucky we beat them like a rented mule.

Some firms are going to a policy of making each lawyer purchase his own legal research service out of his own pocket. For those firms, LawReader makes a lot of sense.

 For most lawyers however, we are indeed the complete answer.  We offer more of the basic black letter law than do the big guys.  We charge far less than they do…and we employ people who live in the U.S. and got their legal training here. Only you can make the choice that is right for your situation.

ATTITUDE:

We have some attitude, we admit it.  We know in the practice of law, that sometimes you must make an argument that may require the court to change the law.  We try to find authorities that show where the law is going and point out alternatives from the staus quo.  When you access the larger services, you usually get a very conservative approach to the law.  We don’t condemn that view of their mission, and most of our content is the same, but we add in many areas, ideas and suggestions with novel and provocative suggestions to attack the status quo.  We believe that we are the only resource that provides a view of the law as it develops.  Our Weekly Decisions of the Court of Appeals, shows you trends in the law that won't show up on other services for a year or two.

CONCLUSION

You can only get a proper analysis of LawReader by logging on and clicking on some pages, to see for yourself if LawReader is right for you.  If you believe that you can get by on your good looks and charm, we salute you.  However, we find that the most successful personal injury lawyers in Kentucky have signed on to LawReader.  You will have to make that decision, but those that do use LawReader are usually very passionate about it…that’s because we really deliver.

Disclaimer:    We are not attempting to practice law, give advice or represent ourselves as anything more than a resource portal with many unique features. Our design is copyrighted. We have no claim of any affiliation with any linked website nor any liability for anything they may say or do. We, and our contributing authors, offer no warranties of any type, to anyone, about anything express or implied.  What you see is what you get, we cannot afford to be your insurer.   

By going further into this site, you accept this complete waiver of all warranties.

© All material copyrighted, LawReader, Inc. 314 7th. St., Carrollton, Ky. 41008