FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JMD WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 1995 (202) 616-2765 TDD (202) 514-1888 JUSTICE DEPARTMENT AWARDS NEW CONTRACT FOR COMPUTERIZED LEGAL RESEARCH WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of Justice has awarded a multi-year contract for computer assisted legal research to West Publishing for up to $16 million. The contract resulted from a Request for Proposals issued in September 1994 and widely circulated to interested vendors. It covers the last three months of Fiscal Year 1995 and four option years thereafter. Stephen R. Colgate, Assistant Attorney General for Administration, said the contract would give all Justice Department personnel unlimited access to the commercial Westlaw service for a single, fixed monthly fee. He said the fee includes computer software and training, and special training for disabled users. The contract, which replaces the Department's current access through a Library of Congress contract, will provide enlarged Westlaw services while reducing costs. The Department previously cut total on-line legal research costs for West and all other sources from $12 million in Fiscal Year 1993 to about $8 million in 1994. "This contract should enable us to drop the cost to about $5 million in Fiscal Year 1996," said Colgate. The Department will continue to use other computer assisted legal research services such as LEXIS-NEXIS through the Library of Congress contract on an hourly-rate basis. The new contract assures the Department of fixed rates for most of its computer assisted research through Fiscal 1999. The flat fee includes access to the Dow Jones News/Retrieval Service on Westlaw, which includes more than 1,600 publications such as the Wall Street Journal and same-day access to the New York Times. Access to BNA and Dialog on Westlaw will be obtainable on an hourly-rate basis. Colgate said performance guarantees in the new contract are particularly important to the Department. West Publishing has guaranteed that Westlaw will be available to Department attorneys and other personnel 24 hours a day, seven days a week. West also guarantees current response time and adequate computer capacity to meet Department of Justice needs. The guarantees are backed by monthly financial rebates if the standards are not met. ##### 95-359