Lexis-Nexis offering passwords to deferred students

There has been a lot in the listserves lately about Lexis-Nexis offering passwords to law students who have had the employment offers deferred. The deal with deferral is that the students do public service work on a volunteer basis, while the employer pays the student a much-reduced stipend (but still a pretty nice deal and certainly better than zippo!). I was offered a question & answer with one of the executives at Lexis-Nexis about this very public-spirited offer. Here is the result of the e-mail interview:

(Answers from Robert Romeo, SVP & GM Research & Litigation Solutions of LexisNexis)


OOTJ: What organizations, for instance, are the students working for that have currently signed up?

RR: We have already received several registrations from graduates as well as a number of inquires from law firms. Some of the organizations so far represented among our registered graduates include:

Exoneration Project

National Center for Refugee and Immigrant Children

Natural Resources Defense Council

Legal Aid Society of New York

UN Environmental Programme

Duke Law Guantanamo Defense Clinic

HIV law project

Michigan Human Trafficking Taskforce

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OOTJ: Are the organizations always from a required list from the law firms or does it vary?

RR: We are not aware if any law firms are providing a required list or organizations. However, we are not limiting this beyond the requirement that it is an organization serving public interest.

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OOTJ: Is there a time limit? Are you just doing this for a year at this point?

RR: We have heard that some law firms are deferring their associates' start dates as far out as September 2010. While the deferred associates' IDs will be extended according to the start and end dates of their engagement with the public interest organization they will be working with, we envision the time frame to be as long as September 2010 at this point.

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OOTJ: Is there a limit to the amount of research the deferred student can do for the public interest organization?

RR: No, the ID can be used by the deferred associate as frequently as needed to support the needs of the public interest organization. The menu of content available includes federal and state caselaw, statutes, regulations, and law reviews.

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OOTJ: Is this like extending the law school password? Same databases, printing, flat rate deal?

RR: The databases available under this program are limited to those described above. However, access is similar to law school subscriptions in that printing is free and no search charges are incurred.

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OOTJ: What prompted Lexis-Nexis to do this?

RR: We are glad to be in a position to assist our law school and law firm customers during this uniquely challenging economic time. We're pleased to be able to say that Corporate Responsibility has long been a part of our culture here at LN, and this program is just one of the ways that we support the legal community's public service goals. For example, we regularly provide our law firms with a no-charge grant of research hours for pro bono service, and we support public service organizations directly with grants via our LexisNexis Cares program. LexisNexis believes that community giving is both an opportunity to play a positive role in our local and global communities and our responsibility as a good corporate citizen.