<B><I>Online Exclusive:</b></i> <b>Lexis Practice Advisor Takes on Bankruptcy</b>

Figure 1: Lexis Practice Advisor topics or tasks in bankruptcy can be easily browsed from the module's homepage where you can drill down to get an overview of a task and practical guidance and materials to help you complete it.

Beneath topics, I found a window pane of documents I recently accessed. The top-right portion of the browser window provided a facility to search the module by keyword and filter my search according to content types: overview documents, practical guidance, forms, legal analysis, cases and codes, and emerging issues, which collects current legal trends and developments in a topic or task.

You can search within a topic by selecting it from a menu of topics. See Figure 2, below.

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Figure 2. The top of the search window provides tabs to filter search results by content type, e.g., cases and codes, as well as a window to select a certain topic or task from a separate menu listing of all topics and subtopics. In effect, you don't have to guess topic and subtopic names.

Below the search box, a 'What's New' box provides a list of new materials available in the bankruptcy module. Among other documents, a new debtor's form for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan was displayed. One click on the item brought up the form, with drafting notes, that I could download in Microsoft Word format (.doc), email, or print. Note that you have more format options when you email it to yourself or a colleague: PDF, rich text, text, Word, or WordPerfect format.

One of the first tasks I had in bankruptcy was to brief a managing partner on changes to section 1127 of the Bankruptcy Code. Due to my 'no problem' attitude, I left her office with one keyword: 1127. At that time, my only experience with the number 1127 was from the Tax code. I took this opportunity to revisit my old 1127 task in LPA's new module.

I typed 1127 into the Title field of the search window, thinking that the bankruptcy section number may warrant a place in the title of a document. No luck, but the search window stayed in place and let me edit the search by cutting 1127 from the Title field and placing it in the 'Full text' field. A total of eight documents were returned across all content types. See Figure 3, below.

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Figure 3. Search results display across multiple tabs that make it easy to see a discrete view of, e.g., cases or codes, without losing touch with other content types such as forms and legal analysis.

The eight documents included an overview document, practical guidance on modifying a plan by Kaplan, of Fried Frank, as well as the new debtor form for a Chapter 11 plan that I had seen in LPA's What's New box before entering my search. Then I clicked on my search results in the Legal Analysis tab and got in-depth content from the treatise Collier on Bankruptcy and the content of 11 USC 1127 as well as Bankruptcy Rule 3019, from the Cases and Codes tab. At this point, I felt it was too easy and decided to validate my research approach.

I scanned the Overview document returned from my search, titled 'Modification of Plan.' That's when I found that my 1127 task was incorporated under an overall reorganization plan. So I looked under the 'Plan of Reorganization …' topic to find the subtopic 'Modification of Plan.' Once I clicked that I received a much better return on my investment where LPA content editors selected relevant materials where 1127 may not have appeared in the full text of the document.

I got the same Practical Guidance document as in my 1127 keyword search result, by Kaplan – no more, no less. But I received more forms and legal analysis documents to review and many more cases. I also retrieved an emerging issue that I did not get from my 1127 full-text search. See Figure 4, below.

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Figure 4: After drilling down into a bankruptcy topic, I received an overview of the topic or task and eased my way into the source material (cases and codes) via the practical guidance from expert authors. Once familiar with the area, it was safe for me to move on to new developments in the law via the Emerging Issues tab.

Endgame

At this point, if you have a Lexis account, you can expand your research into Lexis via the link in the upper right of the browser. In Lexis, you can also set up an alert that, if applicable, would surface in LPA from the View Alerts link at the top of the browser window.

LPA's new Financial Restructuring and Bankruptcy module made short work of an old, memorable bankruptcy task. I will spare you the long story on why that number is memorable today.

LexisNexis announced a new Financial Restructuring and Bankruptcy module for Lexis Practice Advisor, a web-based legal content service designed to give transactional lawyers a step-by-step approach to deal with a particular issue.

Suzanne Petren Moritz, vice president and managing director of Lexis Practice Advisor, says the new module includes content from leading transactional lawyers in the field such as DLA Piper partner George B. South III; Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson partner Gary L. Kaplan; Katten Muchin Roseman partner George Pagano; Squire Sanders partner Nicolas Unkovic; as well as Morris Massel, counsel to Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; and Martin S. Cooper, of counsel to Olshan Grundman Frome Rosenzweig & Wolosky.

The expertise of contributing authors is complimented by in-house bankruptcy practitioners and legal editors from LexisNexis and Matthew Bender, continues Moritz

Leana Fisher, one of LPA's directors of content, and an 8-year bankruptcy veteran from Morgan & Lewis, says when she first started to practice bankruptcy, she would search for a model document, such as a form published inPACER, and apply it to the case in hand. Fisher admitted that she took up the challenge as an LPA content director to further address LPA's mission to bring attorneys up to speed quickly in transactional matters and provide step-by-step guidance in completing tasks to service clients.

After reviewing LPA's Business Law module in January, I revisited the online resource to see how well it completed its mission for the Financial Restructuring and Bankruptcy module. As a lawyer without in-depth bankruptcy knowledge, I found it easy to find expert guidance and forms to complete a transaction, but also found it to be, with Lexis, a one-stop resource center for bankruptcy transactions.

Test Drive

I logged into LPA and found that the interface was limited to a subscription of the new bankruptcy module. The upper left portion of the browser window displayed my active subscription, 'Financial Restructuring and Bankruptcy.' The module name stuck to every web page I viewed and acted as a link to the homepage. If I had other subscriptions, they would be listed with the bankruptcy module and accessed in one click.

Topics in bankruptcy, which correspond to transactional tasks, lay below the module name on the left side of my web browser. The hottest topics appeared on the surface of the page and a detailed look at all the topics was available when I clicked 'View all topics.' See Figure 1, below.

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