JVNJury Verdicts NorthwestResearch Platform Proposal

Prepared July 2026 · Confidential proposal

Turn decades of Northwest verdict reporting into a modern research product.

A fast, subscription-ready database that preserves Melissa’s familiar Westlaw-style search while making the archive intuitive for lawyers, paralegals, and firm teams.

View the investmentSee what was verified

Verified scope

The real archive is substantial—but manageable.

The authenticated customer portal was reviewed in read-only mode. It contains four publication libraries from January 2009 through May–June 2026. This is not a 350,000-PDF migration.

640publication PDFs verified online
4distinct publication libraries
2009–2026digital archive coverage
11k–15kestimated individual reports
01

Clean source boundaries

The supplied 28-page issue contains five pages of cover/index material followed by 14 individual reports across 23 pages.

02

Automatable, with review

Cases have recognizable headings and fields, but some span multiple pages and OCR errors require confidence scoring and a human review queue.

03

Low infrastructure burden

At the expected traffic and corpus size, PostgreSQL search and existing GCP infrastructure can support a fast launch without an expensive search cluster.

The proposed product

Exact when it matters. Modern when it helps.

AI improves discovery and data preparation, but deterministic search and original-source citations remain the foundation.

Search

Westlaw-style exact search

Quoted phrases, AND/OR/exclusions, stemming, proximity, structured filters, saved searches, and highlighted passages.

Read

Case-first document viewer

Open the individual report—not a 30-page publication—with query terms highlighted and the original case PDF available.

Discover

Guided and natural-language search

Simple filters and plain-English questions translate into visible, editable search criteria rather than an opaque AI answer.

Operate

Practical publishing workflow

Upload a publication, review uncertain fields, correct a report, prevent duplicates, publish, and track access from one admin area.

Sell

Subscriptions and firm accounts

Annual-first billing, team access, sensible download protections, trials, invoices, and a retained concierge-research service.

Present

One redesigned experience

A credible public site and research portal under one brand, replacing the current fragmented catalog and account experience.

Delivery & investment

A gated path to launch.

Each phase produces something reviewable. The first $5,000 proves the highest-risk data and search assumptions before the full commitment.

01

Discovery & search prototype

Weeks 1–2

Validate older layouts, capture Melissa’s real Westlaw queries, and prove case splitting, OCR, highlighting, and search quality on a representative pilot corpus.

$5,000
02

Core research application

Weeks 3–8

Build Boolean and phrase search, guided filters, highlighted results, individual case pages, PDF downloads, saved searches, and a responsive lawyer-focused interface.

$20,000
03

Ingestion & administration

Weeks 6–10

Create publication upload, OCR detection, multi-page case splitting, structured extraction, duplicate protection, validation, and a human review queue.

$10,000
04

Accounts, payments & website

Weeks 9–13

Add individual and firm accounts, subscription access, Stripe billing, customer management, and a complete public-site redesign.

$10,000
05

Migration, beta & launch

Weeks 13–16

Import the 2009–current archive, run extraction and relevance QA, onboard beta customers, train staff, deploy production, and stabilize launch.

$10,000
Complete practical V12009–current archive · basic AI-assisted discovery included
$55,000

Recommended customer model

Subscription access, not pay-per-click friction.

Searching and reading should feel abundant. Download limits discourage scraping and account sharing—not research.

Day Pass

$199

24-hour access

10 report downloads
Recommended anchor

Solo Research

$149

per month

$1,490 annually · 1 user

Firm

$349

per month

$3,490 annually · 5 users

Team

$599

per month

$5,990 annually · 15 users
Keep the human service premium.Melissa’s curated searches remain available at the existing $175–$215 range, with rush work priced separately.

Operating economics

Low technical cost. High-value information.

Engineering and data-quality review—not storage or AI tokens—drive the project cost. The verified archive can run economically at low launch traffic.

Platform operations$150–$600per month, before payment fees
Maintenance & support$1,000–$1,500per month after launch warranty
25 Solo + 5 Firm≈ $54,700illustrative annual recurring revenue
50 Solo + 10 Firm≈ $109,400illustrative annual recurring revenue

Scope guardrails

What the fixed price assumes.

Included

  • Up to 650 digital publication PDFs
  • Up to 20,000 extracted case reports
  • The four identified publications
  • 2009–current archive migration
  • Responsive public site and portal
  • Basic natural-language assistance
  • 60-day defect warranty

Separately scoped

  • Physical scanning and manual preparation
  • Pre-2009 backfill or different layouts
  • Enterprise SSO, API, or data licensing
  • Advanced analytics and AI research memos
  • Unexpected account-migration constraints
  • Material post-prototype changes

Recommended next step

Start small enough to learn—and real enough to decide.

Approve the $5,000 discovery prototype. Within two weeks, review live search over a representative case set, measured extraction accuracy, the Westlaw-compatible operator list, and a tightened schedule before authorizing the remaining $50,000.

Decision 01Approve the prototype
Decision 02Confirm the year cutoff
Decision 03Select beta customers