School: The fruits of LexisNexis

One of the more bizarre aspects of modern-day law school is how much you get pandered to by the two major online legal research services, LexisNexis and Westlaw. They'll bring in free pizza, free candy, free study guides ... anything to get you into one of those training sessions to learn the myriad benefits of "Wexis." I often snagged lunch or an armful of snacks at these sessions, which covered everything from basic research to methods for online job searching.

The most insidious of these "hooks" is the reward point system. As anyone who has played for Xbox Live Achievement Points can tell you, sometimes just getting a little number to rise on the screen of your profile every day is enough motivation for people to do some tedious things. If that's not enough, you can redeem the points for fabulous prizes (a la Chuck E. Cheese). I actually turned in all the points from my two 1L semesters and received a shiny new copy of "Long Distance" (fabulous album BTW if you like atmospheric pop) and a copy of Charles Dickens' anti-litigation classic, Bleak House (how's that for irony?).

Why do these two companies go through all this trouble? Simple - legal research is free when you're a law student, but the cost rises dramatically when you actually practice law. Like a dealer offering free hits, these companies are getting us addicted to the quick and easy path. I last heard the fee from one of the big boys was something like $600/hour (sounds outrageous, but that hour could yield a whole lot of useful little obscure cases).