EXTRA: Legalese vs. English

PRECKWINKLE: Legalese translator?

The Cook County Board gave its approval Wednesday to a measure that will have county government spend just over $3 million to have access to Lexis/Nexis for the next three years – with options to renew for two more years.

Lexis/Nexis, of course, is the computer database that provides so much detailed information. For those of you wiseacres who are going to claim the county could use the Internet for free, keep in mind that Lexis/Nexis provides access to credible information – rather than the babble that pollutes too many websites.

IN DESCRIBING THE need for the access by the court system, the state’s attorney, the public defender’s office and the county sheriff, county Commissioner John Daley, D-Chicago, described the need for “legal research” by those entities.

To which county board President Toni Preckwinkle retorted, “You mean a substitution for law books?!?”

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