Attachment 1-Online Legal Research SOW Revised 8.31.2023- Final.pdf

Online Legal Research Library Services Statement of Work (SOW) Revised August 31, 2023

I. BACKGROUND:

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is an independent agency that regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, natural gas, and oil.

The Office of the Secretary (OSEC) currently has access to access to West Publishing Corporation, A Thomson Reuters Business Westlaw Edge platform for up to 1,000 users across FERC and to Drafting Assistant software for seven eight (8) users within the Office of Enforcement (OE). OSEC’s current subscription to Westlaw Edge provides users with unlimited simultaneous access to their online legal research library which contains a variety of databases and services. FERC requires continued access to an Online Legal Research platform that is comparable to the brand name or equal services to Thompson Reuters’ Westlaw Edge.

The features found on Westlaw Edge, also provides users access to the database Wolters Kluwer’s CCH (CCH) catalogue of FERC Orders and Opinions and FERC Stats. & Regs. This database is accessible through the Secondary Sources database available on Westlaw Edge. Access to CCH database. is an essential requirement.

II. PURPOSE/GENERAL DESCRIPTION

The objective of this requirement is to purchase online legal research services that have the ability to perform comprehensive legal research quickly and efficiently, which is essential for many FERC employees in their day-to-day tasks and access to an online legal research platform with up-to-date databases and services is an essential research tool for FERC.

This online legal research service and library should provide access for up to 1000 users with unlimited simultaneous usage. It should contain a variety of databases, including Wolters Kluwer’s CCH catalogue of FERC Orders and Opinions and FERC Stats. & Regs. This information should be easily searchable, well organized, curated, and frequently updated.

III. PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE/PLACE PERFORMANCE

Period of Performance:

1-year Base period plus four 1-year option periods with a total of 60 months.

Place of Performance:

• The online legal research library and its services that is accessible from any location with internet access.

• Access to a help desk by phone

• When requested, access to in person training on site. This training will take place at

FERC headquarters located at: 888 1st St NE Washington DC 20426

IV. TASKS

The Contractor shall provide access to an online legal research library for up to 1000 FERC users while providing simultaneous unlimited access to the platform.

This online legal research platform needs to contain a variety of law databases including:

• FERC Specific materials:

o All published FERC Orders and Opinions.

o Erratum on FERC Orders o Federal Power Commission Orders o FERC Practice and Procedure Manual o Other FERC related Tools and Resources such as FERC News and FERC Gas Report.

• Administrative Decisions.

• Public Records

• Federal and State Cases

• Statutes and Regulations

• Federal and State Legislative History

• Analytical Reference Materials comparable to the brand name products AmJur and CJS.

• Federal treatises comparable to the brand name product Wright & Miller Federal Practice and Procedure.

This treatise should be organized by federal rule or the rule of evidence.

• Litigation Materials: Briefs; Trial Court Filings; Trial Court Orders; Arbitration Awards; Docket Sheets; and

Expert Materials

• Access to Wolters Kluwer’s CCH catalogue of FERC Orders and Opinions and FERC Stats. & Regs. This content needs to searchable and contain original CCH pagination.

The list below provides an overview of functions that the legal research library should provide. It is understood that some proposed features might vary, but all of the functions listed below should support the user in by providing clear, complete, relevant, and accurate research results.

• The ability to organize their individual research. This should include the ability to:

• sign up for alerts;

• bookmark resources and organize these locations into groups;

• save research to folders as well as organize, search, sort, and filter these folders;

• share folders;

• highlight and annotate documents;

• copy with reference;

• print, email and download documents

• Predictive intuitive language searches that produce search results which return a high rate of relevant documents while being clear, accurate, and include FERC materials.

• Content that is organized so the user can quickly and easily navigate between topics and filter search results. The process of refining searches should follow a smooth and logical pattern that quickly gets the user to relevant results. Examples of this type of organization might include:

• The ability to open multiple documents with one click so the user can view at their research side by side.

• The advance search feature in a database includes search fields that are straight forward and applicable to the database being search rather than a set of generic fields.

• After a search is performed, the ability to edit and refine your advance search without having to start that search over from the beginning again.

• A variety of ways to sort search results shall include: relevance, date, most cited, most used, court level, and term frequency.

• A variety of features that assist users in finding cases that are related to their research. These might include but are not limited to:

• Documents that are curated in a user-friendly manner and assist the user in finding relevant research. For example:

Tabs at the top of the page that open further content related to each document in an inclusive way. These tabs should include case history, negative treatment, citing references, and table of authorities.

These tabs should contain corresponding information such as the depth of treatment and which headnotes contain the points of law discussed.

Visual history showing the timeline of how a case moves through the courts.

• Organization system comparable to the brand name product, West Key Numbering System. This system should identify legal issues in published opinions, assign a topic, and classify them. The user should then be able to use this classification system to navigate from topic to topic and refine broad topics into more specific ones. This system should be applied across the legal research platform so users can quickly and efficiently find related research.

• Clear, accurate, and useful headnotes that will assist the user in quickly obtaining a high rate of relevant research. These headnotes should contain content that accurately describes the case while proving analysis of the material, includes the use of legal synonyms and terms of art. This is to ensure that relevant cases are not missed if the exact term or phrase isn’t used, and relate back to a classification system similar to the brand name product, West Key Numbering System.

• Ability to highlight passages of text within a document and quickly check them to locate additional relevant cases.

• Verification of overruled or abrogated cases using a system comparable to the brand name product, West Key Cite. This system should provide the user an accurate, quick, and comprehensive way to check the history and citations for a case to determine if a case is good law. This system should visually alert the user to the status of a case and the depth of treatment

• The ability to compare previous and current Statutes and Regulations.

• FERC currently uses Westlaw cites for unreported cases and often needs to reference these documents.

FERC requires a clear, accurate, and efficient system for researching unreported cases with a Westlaw citation.

FERC requires training and support for this online legal research library. This should include:

• access to a 24/7 technical and research support help desk;

• unlimited training for users should include access to online videos, guides, and webinars; and

• the ability to schedule online instructor led group trainings and one-on-one instruction.

FERC requires access to an administrator account. This account should allow for:

• activation and deactivation of users;

• organize users into separate groups for the program office; and

• provide usage reports that contains information on registration status, last logon dates, usage, and contact information.

The Contractor shall provide access software that is brand name or equal to Thompson Reuters’ Drafting Assistant.

This software provides tools for drafting legal documents. It assists users in preparing and formatting documents by:

• locating authorities,

• formatting citations, and

• creating tables of authorities.