Frequently Asked Questions
This FAQ set is intended to provide the reader with a clearer understanding of LRC’s Legal Research, Writing, and Management Services.
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How will an enterprise-wide program of Legal Research Management help you reduce legal costs?
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How will LRC’s Legal Research Management solutions benefit you?
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What bottom-line cost savings will LRC’s Legal Research Management solutions deliver?
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How does LRC charge for its Multijurisdictional Survey Services?
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What information should be communicated when requesting research?
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What is LRC’s strategic vision and market niche?
Minneapolis-based Legal Research Center offers legal research, knowledge management, and regulatory compliance services to attorneys in corporate and private practice throughout the world. LRC’s legal research services include domestic and international multijurisdictional surveys, e-knowledgebases, trial and appellate briefs, and office memoranda. LRC’s research management services include workproduct database design and facilitation, and web portal development and maintenance. LRC’s Integrity Interactive™ regulatory compliance services include risk assessment, story-based training, automated administration, integrated testing, and secure reporting.
LRC has a scalable core team of over 75 research attorney, editor and project management specialists available to our customers on a virtual basis. Additionally, LRC accesses a global network of legal subject-matter experts in all areas of substantive law, who work in collaboration with our core team on an as-needed basis. LRC’s research attorneys are honors graduates who have practiced law for at least two years, and many for over twenty-five, in major law firms and corporate law departments throughout the United States. The corporate vision of LRC is to remain the nation's premier provider of outsourced legal research services, culturally committed to operational excellence, customer intimacy, and product/service innovation.
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What services does LRC provide?
Legal Research:
LRC’s Legal Research & Writing Service has completed tens of thousands of research assignments in its twenty five years of doing business. Our Research Attorneys have researched hundreds of thousands of legal issues, in all areas of law. Service includes research, fact-and-issue analysis, and writing on a project-by-project basis. A project may involve any number of issues – from the simple to the complex. The final workproduct could be a short letter, an in-depth memorandum or a formal brief for a local, state, or federal court.
LRC’s Guaranteed Appellate Brief Service offers a 100% money-back guarantee that the lawyer using the service will win his or her case. With LRC’s Guaranteed Appellate Brief Service, the lawyer preparing an appeal simply provides one of LRC’s appellate specialists with the relevant facts needed to understand the case. LRC then performs a no-cost evaluation and presents a fixed-price estimate to prepare the appellate brief. Cases qualify for the guarantee as long as the merits of the appeal are compelling, the success probabilities are sufficiently high, and the preliminary research is sufficiently supportive.
LRC’s Factual Research, Case Valuation and Document Services tap hundreds of databases and libraries all over the world to effectively respond to the nonlegal factual information needs of its clients. LRC locates product information, case valuation data, biomedical information, competitive intelligence, essentially any type of information an attorney might need. And through its global network of libraries and information resources, LRC provides copies of any document requested.
LRC’s Library Services offer a full range of cost-effective library consulting, staffing, management, and training services to law firms and corporate law departments. No other company in the country has the combined library, research, technological, and publishing expertise that LRC offers.
LRC’s Contract Attorney Service provides highly credentialed attorneys to law firms and corporate law departments on a full- or part-time, temporary or permanent basis. Responding to your need to control costs while effectively managing workload variances, pricing depends upon the level of experience of the placed attorney and the number of hours for which you contract. In most cases, costs will be lower than for a staff attorney.
Research Management Services:
LRC’s AskFirst ® Research Management Solution is a web-based software suite that enables your corporate legal department to securely retrieve, share, and reuse workproduct with your preferred outside law firms, legal research and legal publishing partners. Using cutting-edge metadata, peer-to-peer, and distributed database technologies to eliminate document coding and central repository databasing, the software delivers seamless searchability across multiple servers. AskFirst’s® breakthrough methods for extracting and comparing metadata from distributed workproduct empower users to view these disparate resources as part of a single universe of related information – yielding a unique knowledge retrieval and reuse solution.
LRC’s KM Advisory Services are delivered by world-class KM experts from Prism Legal Consulting and LRC, who provide a three-step “assess-design-deploy” solution for law department and law firm customers who want to benefit from a customized set of legal KM “best-practices” on an enterprise-wide basis.
Corporate Compliance:
LRC’s Multijurisdictional Surveys report the statutes, regulations, and case law related to a specific legal topic on a multistate and multinational basis. Surveys are ideal for identifying the best markets for expansion, and for minimizing liability in corporate policies, product design, consumer literature, and other business activities. Counsel may purchase existing surveys at a fraction of the original price or commission their own customized surveys at a low fixed fee. Cost-sharing and cost-recoupment provide further dollar-saving benefits. Surveys can be delivered on paper, electronic file, disk, CD-ROM, or via the web.
LRC’s Compliance LegalScans™ leverage our 25 years of industry-leading legislative and regulatory tracking experience, by providing a turn-key compliance monitoring solution for LRC corporate and law firm customers in the commercial and consumer banking, financial services, energy, insurance, pharmaceutical, healthcare and securities industries. LRC’s Compliance LegalScan ™ is ideal for cost-efficiently tracking legislation, regulations, agency notices, attorney general opinions, and other customizable compliance-related information “feeds” in all U.S. jurisdictions – national, state, regional, and even municipal, if required.
LRC’s Hot-Topic e-Knowledgebases™ are web-based compilations of analytical legal information, frequently multinational in scope, that respond to “hot topic” and/or “market trend” questions in targeted areas of substantive law (like real estate, insurance, banking/financial services, intellectual property, etc.). An LRC Hot Topic e-Knowledgebase ™ may include legislative, regulatory, and case law summaries; legal trend analyses and statistical data; FAQs and encyclopedic content; links to source materials; and a range of other features.
LRC’s Integrity Interactive™ Compliance Training applies the power of Internet learning technology to the challenge of teaching corporate employees how to comply with various regulatory and other legal requirements, such as antitrust, electronic communications, sexual harassment, FCPA, conflicts of interest, insider trading and export control. Far more than a simple Internet course library, Integrity Interactive’s online compliance training program offers an integrated technology solution that reduces a company’s legal exposure to compliance failures.
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How will an enterprise-wide program of Legal Research Management help you reduce legal costs?
An integrated Legal Research Management solution from LRC could include:
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A web-based workproduct database system to securely store and systematically reuse the critical knowledge, lessons learned, and research generated by in-house counsel, outside counsel, and service providers.
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An unbundled and outsourced legal research service option that will enhance research support to your in-house and outside counsel, reduce research costs and cycle time, and improve access to legal and factual information.
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How will LRC’s Legal Research Management solutions benefit you?
A centralized program of Legal Research Management , as offered by LRC, will help you:
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Achieve greater workproduct consistency in employment practice discovery, counsel interaction, and jurisdictional/institutional issue resolution.
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Reduce legal costs by reducing or eliminating duplicative employment practice research through reuse of existing workproduct, and by paying substantially lower rates for both online and analytical research.
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Enhance your ability to analyze employment issues, spot research trends, and develop enterprise-wide litigation strategies and preventive law policies.
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Routinely track the success of pleadings and legal arguments before courts, arbitrators, and other decision-making bodies.
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Improve your ability to leverage expert witness knowledge and testimony.
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Measure the success of the Legal Research Management best-practices we collaboratively implement.
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What bottom-line cost savings will LRC’s Legal Research Management solutions deliver?
By adopting LRC’s recommended Legal Research Management best practices, you can reduce your legal research and writing expenditures by at least 25%.
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How is quality controlled at LRC?
Quality control is achieved through LRC’s use of highly credentialed, experienced Research Attorneys and Information Specialists, plus comprehensive editorial review by a Senior Attorney Editor and computerized citation checks. Additionally:
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All new hires are stringently tested prior to hiring for their research and writing abilities.
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All project intakes are performed by licensed attorneys.
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A confirmation letter/e-mail is sent to our client attorney to summarize the assigned research scope, budget and timeline.
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All project completions are followed-up with an evaluation form and phone call to make sure the client’s needs have been met.
Importantly, LRC’s hiring criteria for its Research Attorneys is by far the strictest of any company in the legal research industry. We hire:
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honor law school graduates;
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who have at least two years of practical lawyering experience;
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who excel on LRC’s proprietary research and writing test (of which only about 10% pass); and
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who are technologically proficient.
Finally, wherever possible, LRC assigns a client’s continuing research projects to the same Research Attorneys, or a team of Research Attorneys, who have established rapport with the client on past assignments.
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What is LRC’s service guarantee?
LRC guarantees complete satisfaction with its service. In the unlikely event that a customer is dissatisfied, for whatever reason, LRC will do whatever it takes to make him/her satisfied. While LRC does not promise that it will locate the dispositive case, statute, or regulation that answers a customer’s question within a pre-established budget, it does promise that the very best research effort will have been expended within the authorized budget. And, if it appears that the answer may be located with additional searching, LRC will so advise the client and request more time.
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How are LRC research budgets formulated?
A one-issue memorandum generally takes between 5 and 15 hours, a one-issue brief 15 hours, and an appellate brief 25 hours or more. Customers often ask LRC’s Research Attorneys to invest between three and five hours of time in a project before a final budget is agreed upon. At that time, the Research Attorney will also estimate charges for disbursements, generally averaging 20 percent of the labor bill.
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How does LRC charge for its Multijurisdictional Survey Services?
LRC’s process for developing a high value/low cost survey solution is one in which clients are closely involved. We collaboratively define the project scope with you and present both fixed and hourly pricing options from which you can choose. Additionally, on selected surveys we provide cost-sharing and cost-recoupment (via resale) options for your consideration.
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How does LRC charge for its Research & Writing Services?
LRC’s customers have a choice of pricing options. Most customers prefer our fixed-fee option. When you call with a project, LRC will develop a fixed price so you’ll know up front exactly how much the work you’ve requested will cost. The price we quote is based on the number of legal issues to be addressed and the complexity of the analysis that’s required. We also factor into this fixed price our anticipated costs for computer-assisted research services and other incidentals.
LRC also offers hourly pricing, a more comfortable option for some customers. Under this system, customers pay an initial retainer, and LRC Research Attorneys go to work. The assigned Research Attorney will conduct three to five hours of initial research before reporting back to you with an initial impression of the law and an estimated budget for the remainder of the work. The final cost will include actual time costs based on the proximity of your deadline and expenses, including on-line research, courier services and other necessary costs.
Frequently, our customers ask us to expand our research beyond the initial scope of the research project. For instance, while conducting initial research, we may identify a collateral issue and bring that side issue to your attention. You then have the option of expanding the original scope of research to include the collateral issue. If you do so, you have the same pricing options described above. We can either agree on an additional fixed price for addressing the newly-identified issue, or we can proceed on an hourly basis. In every instance, the pricing option is up to you!
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How does LRC bill?
Customers are asked to pay an agreed-upon retainer at product inception and then are billed the remainder of the balance shortly after the project completion or, in the case of ongoing projects, at specified intervals. Payment is due within 30 days.
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Why does LRC charge a higher hourly rate for rush service?
LRC incents our Research Attorneys to accept rush, weekend, and evening research assignments by paying them substantially more for this time-sensitive work. Our tiered pricing model reflects these payment incentives. Additionally, we have determined that a tiered pricing approach helps our clients prioritize the time-sensitivity of their assignments to LRC, which helps us manage workflow more efficiently.
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How is a research request submitted to LRC?
Requesting attorneys may call LRC at (800) 776-9377 or outside US (612) 332-4950. You may also send your research request to LRC by email (info@lrci.com), mail (1100 Flour Exchange Building, 310 Fourth Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55415), or facsimile (612-332-7454). Generally, the most efficient way to delegate a research project to LRC is by telephone or email.
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What information should be communicated when requesting research?
The following information is generally helpful, although not required in every case:
- Your client’s name
- The case name
- The name of opposing counsel and firm, if any
- Statement of the facts
- Research issues
- Your feelings and instincts about the case and the issues submitted
- Any research you have compiled to date
- The status of the case
- The preferred format for our workproduct
- Your timetable
- Budget factors
- Copies of the relevant file documents
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How does LRC handle conflicts of interest?
LRC avoids conflicts of interest when delivering research and writing services to LRC customers through three principal methods: (a) LRC policy; (b) contracts with Research Attorneys; and (c) observance of ethics rules.
LRC Policy
It is LRC’s policy to guard against conflicts of interest by declining employment in any case if it or its Research Attorneys have provided services to opposing counsel with respect to the same case. LRC accepts research and writing projects on a first-come, first-served basis. Each time a research or writing request is received, LRC asks its attorney-customer to identify:
- all opposing counsel;
- the firm names of each opposing counsel; and
- the full title of the case, identifying each party to the lawsuit.
This information is then cross-referenced against LRC’s computerized conflicts file. If it is found that LRC’s services have already been employed by opposing counsel with respect to any issue in that same case, the second attorney is immediately informed of this fact and that LRC will not undertake the assignment. Although this may exceed the ethical obligations of LRC and its Research Attorneys, LRC has adopted this policy to preserve the independence of its research judgment and to assure its customers that they need not be apprehensive that LRC may be working on both sides of a case.
LRC Contracts with its Research Attorneys
LRC also guards against possible conflicts through its contractual arrangements with its Research Attorneys. LRC Research Attorney contracts prohibit them from undertaking projects that may create a conflict of interest. With respect to every project assigned to an LRC Research Attorney, if he or she identifies a potential conflict, he or she is obligated to inform LRC’s Director of Research, and to cease work on the project immediately. Such projects will be reassigned unless LRC, in consultation with its customers if necessary, resolves the conflict.
Ethical Obligations
All of LRC’s Research Attorneys are licensed attorneys obligated to comply with the ethical requirements of their licensing state. By the year 2000, more than 40 jurisdictions (including Minnesota, LRC’s headquarters) had adopted a version of the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct. See Minn. Rules of Professional Conduct. Thus, LRC’s Research Attorneys are bound by several ethical rules that are specifically designed to avoid conflicts of interest. See Rules 1.7—1.11.
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How does LRC handle confidential information?
LRC is committed to maintaining in confidence all information received from or through the attorney-customer. The only exceptions to document confidentiality are if it is already known by LRC before it was communicated to LRC by the customer; if it was lawfully disclosed to LRC by any third party; or if it is information that is generally known or is in the public domain.
LRC’s stated commitment to confidentiality is buttressed by four independent obligations or doctrines: (a) contract obligations; (b) ethical obligations; (c) attorney-client privilege; and (d) workproduct doctrine.
Contract Obligations
All of LRC’s Research Attorneys are obligated by an express contractual provision to maintain the confidentiality of all information relating to the requesting attorney and his or her client and cases, subject to the exceptions noted above. Moreover, LRC’s Research Attorney contracts provide that the Research Attorney’s “duty to maintain confidentiality extends beyond the expiration of this Agreement and that [the Research Attorney] will never discuss or divulge any such confidential information unless specifically authorized to do so by LRC.”
This contractual obligation of confidentiality is reiterated and reinforced in LRC’s Procedures and Policy Manual which expressly provides:
“Confidentiality must be strictly observed. No research project should ever be discussed with people who do not work for LRC.”
Ethical Obligations
Confidentiality of matters relating to the attorney-customer and his or her client, case or transaction is further assured by various Rules of Professional Conduct, specifically Rule 1.6 (prohibiting lawyer from revealing information relating to representation of a client unless the client consents after consultation except for disclosures impliedly authorized to carry out the representation), and Rule 5.2 (providing that even subordinate lawyers who act at direction of another person are bound by the Rules of Professional Conduct). See also Restatement of the Law Third, Law Governing Lawyers 12(1) (2000) (providing that a lawyer must conform to the requirement of the applicable lawyer code even when acting at the direction of another lawyer or person). Thus LRC’s Research Attorneys are bound by applicable Rules of Professional Conduct to maintain in confidence information relating to the customer and his or her client.
The attorney-customer, of course, does not violate his or her own confidentiality obligation by disclosing confidential information to LRC and its Research Attorneys.
A lawyer generally has authority to use or disclose confidential client information to persons assisting the lawyer in representing the client. Those include other lawyers in the same firm and employees such as secretaries and paralegals. A lawyer may also disclose information to independent contractors who assist in the representation such as investigators, lawyers in other firms, prospective expert witnesses, and public courier companies and photocopy shops to the extent reasonably appropriate in the client’s behalf.
Restatement 60 cmt. f (emphasis added).
The Attorney-Client Privilege
The attorney-client privilege is a rule of evidence recognized with minor variations in every American jurisdiction. See Restatement § 68 Introductory Note (2000). This privilege generally provides that “neither a client nor the client’s lawyer may be required to testify or otherwise to provide evidence that reveals the content of confidential communications between client and lawyer in the course of seeking or rendering legal advice or other legal assistance.” Id. ; see Uniform Rules of Evidence Rule 502 (1974).
When otherwise applicable, the privilege extends to confidential communications to and from agents of the lawyer and to and from independent contractors who have a contractual relationship with the lawyer to assist in representation of the client. United States v. Kovel , 296 F.2d 918, 921 (2d Cir. 1961); In re Grand Jury Subpoenas , 179 F. Supp. 2d 270, 283 (S.D.N.Y. 2001); Compulit v. Banctec, Inc. , 177 F.R.D. 410, 412 (W.D. Mich. 1997).
A lawyer may disclose privileged communications to other office lawyers and with appropriate nonlawyer staff—secretaries, file clerks, computer operators, investigators, office managers, paralegal assistants, telecommunications personnel, and similar law office assistants . . . the privilege also extends to communications to and from the client that are disclosed to independent contractors retained by the lawyer such as an accountant or physician retained by the lawyer to assist in providing legal services to the client and not for the purpose of testifying.
Restatement § 70 cmt. g (emphasis added).
In sum, confidential communications between the requesting attorney and LRC for the purpose of rendering legal services to the requesting attorney’s client are protected by the attorney-client privilege. See Revised Uniform Rules of Evidence, Rules 502(a)(4) and 502(b); P. Rice, 2 Attorney-Client Privilege in the United States § 5.5 (1999).
The Workproduct Doctrine
In appropriate circumstances, the workproduct doctrine is also applicable to protect documents prepared by LRC for the requesting attorney. As codified in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the doctrine protects from discovery by one party “documents . . . otherwise discoverable . . . prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial by or for another party or by or for that other party’s representative (including the other party’s attorney, consultant, surety, indemnitor, insurer or agent).” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3) (1998). See United States v. Nobles , 422 U.S. 225, 238-39 (1975) (recognizing doctrine protects materials prepared on behalf of attorney as well as those prepared by attorney himself).
Although some workproduct documents prepared in anticipation of litigation must still be produced to an adverse party if that party demonstrates that they are substantially needed and cannot otherwise be obtained, production of documents or tangible things that would reveal mental impressions and legal theories are not required. “In ordering discovery of such materials when the required showing has been made the court shall protect against the mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal theories of an attorney or other representation of a party concerning the litigation.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(3) (1998).
Then, when an attorney asks LRC to undertake a research project in anticipation of or in connection with litigation, the workproduct generated is protected by the workproduct doctrine. Nobles , 422 U.S. at 239-40 (holding that the workproduct rule protects material prepared by agents from an attorney as well as those materials prepared by the attorney himself.)