LEXIS-NEXIS Introduces Integrated Citations Service; New SHEPARD'S Gives Legal Researchers Unprecedented Capabilities.

DAYTON, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 11, 1999--LEXIS-NEXIS today defined the capabilities of its next-generation SHEPARD'S(R) Citations Service, a product that will make legal citations research -- the process of determining whether a selected case is good law and finding related cases -- faster, easier and more comprehensive.

"With the new version of SHEPARD'S, legal researchers can go beyond the traditional ways of using citations services to yield new research possibilities," said Nick Emrick, senior vice president and general manager, LEXIS Online Publishing. "The SHEPARD'S Citations Service is already the standard among legal researchers. We are now raising that standard to an unprecedented level of speed, reliability and ease-of-use." -0-

     The new SHEPARD'S product offers three significant advantages:

     1.   Incorporation of the Auto-Cite(R) and LEXCITE(R) citations
          tools into SHEPARD'S, making available the full LEXIS-NEXIS
          caselaw database for citations research (access to published
          and unpublished decisions is vastly increased)
     2.   An innovative SHEPARD'S FOCUS(TM) feature, which for the
          first time applies the power of the LEXIS(R)-NEXIS(R) search
          engine to a citations product (the text of citing cases can
          be searched for specified terms)
     3.   Ease-of-use enhancements including elimination of the need
          to check parallel citations separately (results from
          multiple sources are consolidated)

The integration also represents greater cost effectiveness for researchers, since individual searches on SHEPARD'S, Auto-Cite and the LEXCITE feature incur separate charges.

Following the July 1998 purchase of SHEPARD'S by Reed Elsevier Inc., the parent company of LEXIS-NEXIS, teams from across LEXIS-NEXIS and SHEPARD'S worked together to merge the best features of the Auto-Cite and LEXCITE tools into the new SHEPARD'S service. Auto-Cite provides the complete procedural history of a case while the LEXCITE feature finds current published and unpublished decisions and other legal authority that may bear on a case. The company also designed the product to allow citations research to be concentrated on a particular fact or point of law through the SHEPARD'S FOCUS feature.

The new SHEPARD'S Citations Service will be available to online users exclusively on LEXIS-NEXIS services beginning in the spring of 1999. Therefore, the new version of SHEPARD'S will not be available on the competing Westlaw(R) service. The previous version of SHEPARD'S will be discontinued from Westlaw as of July 2.

"For several years we have been concerned with inconsistent presentations of SHEPARD'S in the marketplace," Emrick said. "By making SHEPARD'S available only through LEXIS-NEXIS, we will ensure that the high standards represented by the brand are continued."

Emrick said that the new SHEPARD'S incorporates enhancements to improve system navigation. In addition, the new product on LEXIS-NEXIS Xchange (www.lexis.com) will encourage users to adopt the company's easy-to-use browser-based interface. The product will also be available to users of the company's session manager software.

"Checking the validity of legal authority is a vital part of a lawyer's job," Emrick said. "A single invalid citation in a brief or memorandum can jeopardize an entire case. That is why the new version of SHEPARD's is even more indispensable for legal research." -0-

     Through new SHEPARD'S, legal researchers will be able to:

     -    Search and examine cases not only for points of law but also
          for factual issues, words or names (such as particular
          attorneys and judges) by using the SHEPARD'S FOCUS feature.
     -    Substantially increase their access to unpublished opinions.
     -    Take advantage of SHEPARD'S convenient jurisdictional
          sorting, which helps them locate relevant authority quickly.
     -    Gain an accurate and precise understanding of decisions
          affecting a case through history, relationships and case
          connections identified by expert legal editors.
     -    Quickly filter cases and identify highly relevant ones by
          viewing a full range of negative and positive analysis.

SHEPARD'S is the pre-eminent provider of citations research information in the U.S. and has published an organized system of citations, including positive and negative treatment analysis, since 1873. SHEPARD'S is the only citations service covering 50 state and federal statutes; court rules; regulations, including the Code of Federal Regulations; constitutional provisions; and U.S. patents. SHEPARD'S alone provides full coverage of widely used legal reporters such as the Bureau of National Affairs' U.S. Patents Quarterly and CCH's National Labor Relations Board Decisions. LEXIS-NEXIS was the first computer-assisted legal research service to offer SHEPARD'S, as well as the first to offer citations-history and citations-verification services.

LEXIS-NEXIS, headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, is the world's leading provider of enhanced information services and management tools in online, Internet, CD-ROM and hardcopy formats. The company's mission is to help legal, news, business and government professionals collect, manage and use information more productively.

LEXIS-NEXIS is a division of Reed Elsevier Inc., and a member of the Reed Elsevier plc group (www.reed-elsevier.com), one of the world's leading publishing and information businesses. Reed Elsevier has annual sales in excess of $5 billion and 27,000 employees. It is owned equally by Reed International P.L.C. (NYSE:RUK) and Elsevier NV (NYSE:ENL).

Information about LEXIS-NEXIS may be found at the LEXIS-NEXIS Communication Center on the World Wide Web at www.lexis-nexis.com. A listing of additional news releases available via fax may be obtained by calling (800) 34-NEXIS and ordering document No. 0001.

LEXIS, NEXIS, Auto-Cite and LEXCITE are registered trademarks of Reed Elsevier Properties, Inc., used under license. Shepard's and Shepardize are registered trademarks and Shepardizing and SHEPARD's FOCUS is a trademark of Shepard's Company. Westlaw is a registered trademark of West Group.