Dear Westlaw

Dear Westlaw,

It has come to my attention that you are sending out free Westlaw Next iPods to librarians, as a way of promoting your new search interface and its lovely capabilities.

As librarians, we are understandably shocked and appalled by this sort of behavior. The trust between student/lawyer/general public/homeless person and librarian is a sacred bond, one that must be impartial, fair, and above all else uninfluenced by outside pressures. Many in the community view these offerings as a blatant bribe; a present to try and push us to push you on our students, violating that aforementioned sacred bond and acting in a way that is anathema to our professional code.

To help you in this PR disaster in the making, I would like to offer my services.

As a library assistant working for the Friendly Neighborhood Wexis Competitor, my opinion of you is more or less inconsequential. There are no student for me to influence, no young minds to warp. My co-workers have no idea how to use your database, let alone formulate an opinion on it.

I therefore propose the following: send me all of the iPods. All of them. I will use them, I will refrain from becoming biased for or against you, and all of the other law librarians out there and you can rest easy in the knowledge that the ethical code of conduct that I'm sure you would like to help us all uphold is safe and secure.

And then I can have an orange iPod.

Win win, don't you agree?

Sincerely, your friend,

Clair



PS-- Thanks for the earbuds you gave me at LegalTech. You know what would go great with this? Thirty orange iPods.