West: Information and innovation

Since being founded by John B. West in 1872, West has been at the leading edge of innovation. Many West innovations have become synonymous with the successful practice of law, including:

• The West Topic and Key Number System, the master classification system of U.S. law
• Westlaw®, the industry-leading service, with 16,700 legal, financial and business news databases
• KeyCite®, the revolutionary citation research service

Today, West delivers a powerful competitive advantage to its customers by providing the highest-quality legal, regulatory and business information and the most innovative technology tools to manage it. In addition to being the home of Westlaw, West annually publishes over 66 million books and 500 CD-ROM libraries.

To enable customers to focus on the successful practice of law, West leverages its knowledge of the legal market with solutions for client development and legal office automation, provided by our affiliated Thomson businesses, Thomson Elite and Findlaw. In addition, West offers a number of legal education components, including online CLE courses and preparatory materials for the Bar review.

West has been part of Thomson since 1996, and now forms part of the Thomson Legal & Regulatory market group.

About Thomson Legal & Regulatory

Thomson Legal & Regulatory is a leading provider of integrated information solutions to legal, tax, accounting, intellectual property, compliance and business professionals around the world. With 17,000 employees, Thomson Legal & Regulatory has business operations in 24 countries.

About Thomson

Thomson provides must-have information, with technology and applications that help customers make better decisions, faster.

With revenues of $8.70 billion in 2005, we serve more than 20 million information users in the fields of law, tax, accounting, higher education, reference information, corporate training and assessment, financial services, scientific research and healthcare.

Thomson is organized into four market groups employing 40,000 people and operating in more than 130 countries worldwide:

• Thomson Legal & Regulatory – Integrated information solutions for legal, tax, accounting, intellectual property, compliance and business professionals, led by Westlaw
• Thomson Learning – Integrated learning products, services and solutions to individuals, post secondary learning institutions and businesses.
• Thomson Financial – Integrated information and workflow solutions to the worldwide financial community.
• Thomson Scientific & Healthcare – Integrated information, services and solutions to researchers and other professionals in the healthcare, academic, scientific and governmental marketplaces.

Learn more at the Thomson Web site

West and Thomson: A Global Connection

With its financial strength and global reach to serve customer needs far beyond research, Thomson is well positioned to extend West's market leadership to serve customers even more successfully.

• Financial support to drive innovation – Thomson is the driving force behind West technology and editorial enhancements, as well as its building of alliances with leading U.S. and international legal and business content providers.
• Resources for all facets of a successful practice – Thomson integrates the leading office-automation applications and Web marketing tools with its traditional information services, helping customers be more successful.

The Future of Integrated Information Solutions

Driven by a deep understanding of how customers wish to have information delivered to match their workflow, West and our affiliated Thomson businesses are leading the way to turn information into knowledge for faster, better decisions and more profitable operations. Look for exciting developments in these areas:

• Organization by practice area – Highly personalized access to content and tools to match the customer's individual practice and workflow tasks.
• Comprehensive content – Continued rapid expansion of content available – legal and legal-related, domestic and global – to meet the complete needs of decision-makers most cost-effectively.
• Linking of related information – Bringing relevant material to customers without them having to go searching for it; putting key resources in one place for efficient, thorough research; integrating all related information on Westlaw, and much more.
• Holistic office solutions – Integrating the front office and back office for cost-effective operations, developing clients via the Web, providing extranet solutions for attorneys and clients, and much more.
• Wireless technology support – Mission-critical information wherever and whenever customers need it.