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.

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