Management matters: Major upgrades to member benefit vLex Fastcase launched November

Ed Walters is chief strategy officer at vLex and co-founder of Fastcase.

The Missouri Bar has partnered with Fastcase since 2007 to offer complimentary legal research to its members. If you’re a member of The Missouri Bar, you can access Fastcase’s nationwide legal research service – cases, statutes, regulations, court rules, and constitutions. The service includes free reference attorney support by phone or chat and unlimited searching and printing. The service normally costs $1,145 per year, but Missouri Bar members receive this service at no cost. 

A merger of strength 

While Fastcase was building a deep library of legal materials in the United States, vLex was founded in 2000 in Spain and worked to democratize the law in Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Sharing a common mission, Fastcase merged with vLex in 2023. The Fastcase legal research service will be called vLex Fastcase in the United States, and the global corporate name remains vLex. 

The merge formed one of the world’s largest law libraries, with more than 1 billion documents in the combined library from more than 110 countries, and more than 3 million subscribers. Veteran legal journalist Bob Ambrogi said the merger would “reshape the legal research and legal technology landscape on a global basis.” 

Big upgrade for Missouri Bar members 

The new version of vLex Fastcase had a soft launch in Missouri on Nov. 19. vLex Fastcase will remain at no cost for Missouri Bar members, but the new version will offer some significant upgrades to members. 

Cert citator 
Is your case still good law? vLex Fastcase will include the robust Cert citator, a combination of AI and a human editorial review of more than 700,000 citations. The teams have been researching, developing, and testing the citator for four years. The result is a more powerful new citator. 

Vincent AI 
vLex Fastcase will include some of the features of the Vincent AI platform from vLex. Vincent uses artificial intelligence to create headnotes for judicial opinions and find references similar to a selected document, as well as provide tools to translate research into other languages, which can be helpful for advising clients for whom English is not their native language. Some of the tools from Vincent AI will be available for an additional monthly subscription, such as AI-powered research, draft memos, redlines, reviewing contracts, drafting briefs, M&A due diligence, and more. 

Sleek, new interface 
The new vLex Fastcase features a more streamlined, easier-to-read design to make research simpler and more accessible for experts and beginners alike. 

The same benefit, but better 

Through vLex Fastcase, Missouri Bar members can continue to access up-to-date judicial opinions, statutes, regulations, and more for Missouri and the other 49 states, as well as at the federal level. If you subscribe to secondary publications or the briefs and pleadings database, those subscriptions will move with you to the new platform. 

Logging in to vLex Fastcase will work the same way. Visit The Missouri Bar website at MoBar.org/MemberBenefits, navigate to the “Research|Write” category, click the vLex Fastcase button, and log in with your bar username and password. That will log you directly into your personalized start page in vLex Fastcase. 

To learn more about vLex Fastcase and the available updates, watch a tutorial video at MoBar.org/vLexFastcase-Tutorial.

For more resources to help you open, build, manage, protect, and wind down your practice, visit The Missouri Bar’s Law Practice Management Resource Center at MoBar.org/LPM.