Decline of Print Usage
In March 1999, LexisNexis released an online version of the Shepard's Citation Service. While print versions of Shepard's remain in use, their use is declining. Although learning to Shepardize in print was once a rite of passage for all first-year law students, the Shepard's Citations booklets in hard copy format are extremely cryptic compared to the online version, because of the need to cram as much information about as many cases in as little space as possible.
Shepard's paper format consists of long tables of citations (with full case titles omitted) preceded by one or two-letter codes indicating their relationship to the case being Shepardized. Before Lexis became widely available, generations of lawyers (and law clerks and assistants) had to manually locate the Shepard's entry for a case, decipher all the cryptic abbreviations, then manually retrieve all the cases which were marked by Shepard's as criticizing or overruling a particular case, to determine whether the later cases had directly overruled that particular case on the specific issue for which one was interested. In many jurisdictions in the U.S., it is still possible to cite a case as good law even though it has been overruled, as long as it was overruled on another issue and not the specific issue for which it is being cited.
In 2004, market research by LexisNexis indicated that most attorneys and librarians conduct the majority of their research online, but "that there are a number of experienced attorneys, principally in smaller firms, who still prefer print and who are extremely unlikely to change their ways."
The company representative added that:
Given the ripe old ages at which many lawyers continue to practice their profession, we don’t see the market for Shepard’s in print disappearing any time soon. Clearly, subscription lists for Shepard’s products are declining as online usage grows. Attrition has been steepest in large law firms, where relatively junior associates conduct a great deal of citations research online. Attrition has been less steep in libraries and small firms where attorneys who prefer print continue to do their research. For many years, attrition in academic law libraries was relatively low. Many law school libraries continued to retain relatively substantial collections of Shepard’s in print. In recent years, attrition has increased—especially in law schools that no longer teach their students how to Shepardize in print. But because many law school libraries are open to the public (or at least to graduates of the school), including practicing attorneys in the communities they serve, a typical law school library continues to retain at least a basic collection of Shepard’s print products.
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After Shepard’s became a part of LexisNexis, we totally redesigned the way we process case law and citations. The multi-million-dollar Citations Redesign (CR) project was intended to eliminate duplication and allow us to deliver current, accurate information unmatched by our competition. The ability to produce Shepard’s print pages quickly and efficiently was built into the CR requirements—another factor contributing to the continuing viability of Shepard’s in print.
Read more about this topic: Shepard's Citations
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