"Quicklaw™ Co-Founders Announce Retirement" 
      Michael Pilmer to Succedd President and CEO Hugh Lawford

On May 11, 2004 LexisNexis Canada Inc. announced the retirement of its President and Chief Executive Officer, Hugh Lawford, and of its Chief Technology Officer, Dick von Briesen. Lawford and von Briesen co-founded Quicklaw, which over the course of 30 years they shaped to become Canada’s leading online legal information service. In addition to Quicklaw, LexisNexis Canada provides Butterworths print and CD-ROM titles and LexisNexis® global online legal and business information services.

“Quicklaw is a household name to Canadian legal researchers, and the reasons are essentially two people,” said Lou Andreozzi, President and CEO, North American Legal Markets, at LexisNexis. “Hugh Lawford and Dick von Briesen were pioneers in their industry and worked tirelessly to serve the Canadian legal profession. They have been the heart and soul of Quicklaw since the beginning. They and the team they put together over the years made Quicklaw the gold standard in Canada.”

The Quicklaw service, which today provides lawyers, judges, law librarians, law students, and other legal researchers with case law, legislation, legal current awareness services, legal commentary, and news, began in Kingston in the 1960s as the Queen’s University Investigation of Computing and Law (QUIC/LAW) project. In 1973 Quicklaw was launched as a commercial operation provided by QL Systems Limited, a new company co-founded by Lawford and von Briesen that in 1999 was re-incorporated as Quicklaw Inc. Over the years, the Quicklaw service expanded and gained users, and eventually earned a reputation as the national provider of online legal information.

Lawford is a Professor Emeritus of Law at Queen’s University where he taught for 41 years. Von Briesen, whose role with Quicklaw was to develop the service and design new features, previously was a law school faculty member and practising lawyer, and is a former research engineer and computer programmer–systems analyst. Lawford and von Briesen retired on July 15, two years after Quicklaw Inc. was acquired by LexisNexis Group, a global leader in legal, news, and business information. In 2003 Quicklaw merged with LexisNexis Butterworths Canada, the existing Canadian business unit of LexisNexis, to form LexisNexis Canada Inc.

“I want to personally thank Hugh and Dick for their entrepreneurial vision and many years of service to the legal profession,” said Andreozzi. “They supported a successful integration of Quicklaw and LexisNexis Butterworths Canada into LexisNexis Canada Inc. The new company is well positioned, and LexisNexis fully intends to continue what they started and developed as the most successful legal research enterprise in Canada.”

Company Appoints New CEO

Michael Pilmer, currently Chief Operating Officer at LexisNexis Canada, will become President and CEO effective upon Lawford’s retirement. Pilmer joined LexisNexis two months after Quicklaw’s acquisition by LexisNexis was finalized in July 2002, as Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning for the newly merged unit of Quicklaw and LexisNexis Butterworths Canada.

The appointment was announced by John Lawler, President and CEO, Martindale-Hubbell, and Senior Vice President, Emerging Markets, at LexisNexis. Lawler commended Pilmer for his “strong planning, organizational, and business skills” and said that Pilmer “has been instrumental in shaping the integration of the two former business units and their positioning in the Canadian marketplace.”

Pilmer previously was a partner with Hollinger Capital, a venture capital group focused on technology startups. He was also Vice President, Hollinger Digital, an operating subsidiary of Hollinger International, responsible for the development of Canadian electronic media products.