Lexis Practice Advisor Gets California Module ? Undisputed Legal Inc.

By Sean Doherty

LexisNexis?Legal & Professional, a provider of content and technology to legal professionals, today announced it has added its first jurisdictional module, California, to Lexis Practice Advisor, a Web-based practical guidance offering.

Like the Business Law module released in January and the Financial Restructuring & Bankruptcy module released in May, the California module is online guidance for transactional attorneys designed to simplify access to practice areas and get an attorney up to speed quickly on a new or unfamiliar area of the law, as well as provide a good start to drafting a client document.

Eric Bourget, content director for Lexis Practice Advisor California module, explained that the module has three types of topic areas to dive into: business law such as California entities; new practice areas, e.g., commercial real estate; and industries like entertainment law. See Figure 1.

Figure 1: An expanded view of the transactional topics in the Lexis Practice Advisor.

After you drill into a topic area, the Practice Advisor lays out information on the topic in tabbed displays that give you an overview of the topic area, practical guidance, applicable forms, legal analysis, cases and codes, and emerging issues. See Figure 2.

Figure 2: The right browser window opens up a topical area into a number of tabbed items for further research.

For solo practitioners or associates in law firms without a mentor, the Practice Advisor aims to provide transactional lawyers with practical advice on new areas of law or a refresher course in an area not well traveled.

TEST DRIVE

Since I am located in California, I wondered what it would be like if a budding actor under the age of 18 walked into my office looking for an agent. After sweeping the criminal code off my desk, I would explore the legal needs for the young actor, who wanted to know how he could save his money from his first gig as a stunt man in an action film so his parents wouldn?t take it all to the race track. I would then ask my potential client for a recess and explore the possible new business during lunch.

I logged into the Practice Advisor?s California module and did a quick search for a California Code regarding?Jackie Coogan, whom I remembered had financial issues as a child actor in California that resulted in legislation. I focused the search on the topic of Entertainment Law and saw it was divided into Managers, Agents, and Attorneys, as well as Music Law and Motion Pictures. I selected Managers, Agents, and Attorneys and put Coogan in the full-text search window. One entry was returned: California Family Code ? 6753 on the establishment of Coogan Trust Account for a minor.

I explored the Practice Advisor in my new role as agent. The new California module has an overview document that analyzes the responsibility of managers, agents, and attorneys. Once I finished that, I dove deeper in the Practical Guidance tab and read about special considerations when representing minors under the age of 18, including the general rule that minors lack the capacity to enter into legally binding contract and they may attempt to ?disaffirm? or ?void? a contract upon reaching the age of majority.

The practical guidance section was current (Aug. 3, 2012) and written by Christiane Cargill Kinney, a partner at LeClairRyan and the chair of the firm?s entertainment industry team. In general, the practical guidance, forms, and practice notes in the California module were written by California practitioners from firms such as Best Best & Krieger, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Gordon & Rees, Jones Day, LeClairRyan, and Perkins Coie.

The Practice Advisor supplied information and legal analysis on a minor?s ability to repudiate a contract and a court-approved entertainment contract that limits a minor?s right to repudiate or cancel a contract on the basis of age at the time of signing, with California Code and case law support from all California state and federal cases. The Practice Advisor?s Forms tab included a Petition for Approval of Minor?s Employment Contract and an Order Approving Minor?s Employment Contract ? both forms included a summary on how to prepare and use the documents in court.

Bourget says that the Practice Advisor has two types of forms: some forms are contributed by authors (such as Kinney); other forms are culled from Matthew Bender treatises and California Legal Forms.

I had the options to print, email, or download the forms in Microsoft Word format. But if I were to make a habit of using these forms, the Practice Advisor did not have a facility to alert me if the forms were revised. At this time, I would have to monitor ?What?s New? from the home page to know that a form was updated.

Before I left my research task, I saw that the Emerging Issues tab was populated with a document of interest to my theoretical case: ?Agents vs. Talent: Money For Nothing?? This story informed me that there was trouble in paradise: agents are now suing clients in droves for unpaid commissions.

Returning to the home page, I saw many of the documents I viewed under the Recently Viewed Documents tab. There is no facility to save my research to a folder or other object for another session. With the ease of entry by topic and tabbed navigation to drill down into source materials, you may find no need save searches or documents. Of course you can download, email, or print documents, but if you want to return to the same research or keep abreast of changes, use the search and alert functions.

I took my initial search under the topic Managers, Agents, and Attorneys in Entertainment Law and set it up as a weekly alert to inform me if any content type triggered by a full-text search for the word ?Coogan.? See Figure 3.

Figure 3: Lexis Practice Advisor weekly Alert set to trigger if the system publishes a new case or statute that mentions Coogan.

For $90.00 per month per attorney (discounts available), the Practice Advisor may well be worth the money to help you with a new area of legal transactions or refresh your knowledge of an area you don?t frequent. And stay tuned to further developments. Suzanne Petren Moritz, vice president and managing director for Lexis Practice Advisor, says an edition for corporate counsel will be out in three to four months.

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