Here’s another stupid thing that Westlaw decided to do this week..
Above the Law Report:
Is Westlaw Discriminating Against Puerto Rico?
Update (4:15): After this post went was published, Thomson Reuters reversed course and reinstated the free printer access to Puerto Rican law schools. Click here for our coverage.
Thomson Reuters owns Westlaw and is one of the two major gatekeepers to legal research in the modern world. Recently, the company made an economic decision that some claim unfairly impacts law students in Puerto Rico. A tipster reports:
It seems Westlaw has decided to cut their free printer service to the four Puerto Rico Law schools for economic reasons, while keeping the service in all US law schools.
Why would Westlaw only discontinue free printer access to Puerto Rican law students? One Westlaw user wrote to Thompson Reuters, asking the company to reconsider its decision. But he also seems to have figured out why Westlaw made this decision.
As you may imagine, Westlaw, as well as Lexis-Nexis printers at the local law school libraries are mostly used by full time students who spend most of their day and night at the schools, but more importantly, by underprivileged students with limited resources who do not have at their disposal computers, printers and other technological equipment. Although we may take for granted that nowadays everybody has a computer and a printer, our local reality in Puerto Rico is still much different than the one for US law school students. Based on a local law school census made, it seems that the canceling of this service was limited to the Puerto Rico law schools, as contacts have been made with US law schools and so far Westlaw has not limited the printers’ service at their libraries.
I was informed that the printers and related supplies use at the Puerto Rico law schools is proportionately much higher than the one at US law schools. Should this be the case, it would be totally consistent with the fact that Puerto Rico law school students, as opposed to US law school students, have less resources at their disposal, as mentioned before, forcing them to use your research and printers’ services at the local law school libraries….
[I]t is really sad for me to be witness to many of my fellow students’ hardships trying to come up with means to pay law school and sacrificing themselves and many times their families, which for many of us would be difficult enough; now having to add another obstacle forcing them to stay even longer hours at the law school libraries to be able to perform research only through Lexis-Nexis in order to be able to print through their printers after making long waits for their few printers.
Is Westlaw cutting off free printer access to students who need it most? It might make sense from a cost control standpoint, but it’s not a strong moral position.
http://abovethelaw.com/2009/08/is_westlaw_discriminating_agai.php
