LEXIS‐NEXIS: PAST AND FUTURE

The origins of the LEXIS‐NEXIS service lie in the defence industry. Specifically its database engine, originally called ‘Central!’, was developed by the Ohio‐based Data Corporation to help the US Air Force keep track of procurement contracts and equipment inventory. This technology was later to prove attractive to the American Bar Association when it began exploring the potential of computer‐assisted legal research in the 1960s: an interest that led to the decision by the Ohio State Bar Association, in 1967, to award a $7000 contract to the Data Corporation. As a consequence, the Central! search engine become the core of a new full‐text searchable computerised database of the Ohio statutes. Called the Ohio Bar Automated Research — or OBAR — service this was later to grow into today's LEXIS‐NEXIS service.