What Practitioners and Researchers Say About Lexicord
The following accounts are drawn from subscribers across individual, institutional, and customisation engagements. They reflect a range of use cases and, where noted, some reservations about scope or coverage that informed subsequent editorial updates.
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years in operation
340+
active subscribers
4.7
average reader rating
>90%
institutional renewal rate
What Readers Have Told Us
Catherine Ho
Barrister, Hong Kong Bar
I use the glossary primarily for cross-jurisdictional work where I need to quickly orient myself on how a term has been applied in Hong Kong specifically rather than in English authority. The citation notes are the part I value most — they take me to the right starting point rather than leaving me to trawl the indices.
Individual subscription — April 2025
Michael Wong
Head of Legal, Finance Co., Central HK
We took out an institutional subscription for the in-house team about eighteen months ago. The main benefit has been consistency — when different team members look up the same term, they are working from the same definition and the same authority. It has reduced a certain amount of back-and-forth that used to happen when people had used different sources.
Institutional subscription — March 2025
Prof. Patricia Lau
Associate Professor of Law, Hong Kong
I recommend Lexicord to postgraduate students as a starting point, not a finishing point — and I say that as a positive observation, not a criticism. The entries acknowledge uncertainty where it exists, which makes them more honest than a number of printed dictionaries. For a researcher, knowing the shape of a dispute is more useful than a confident summary that papers over it.
Individual subscription — April 2025
James Cheung
Solicitor, Tsim Sha Tsui
The coverage of property law entries has been the most useful for me. I work in conveyancing and it is a subject where practitioners sometimes have slightly different understandings of the same term. Having an entry that cites the specific Hong Kong authority — rather than an English one that may not apply in the same way — matters practically.
Individual subscription — February 2025
Sophie Ng
Research Director, University Law Centre
We used the editorial customisation service to extend the platform with a set of terms specific to our regulatory research programme. The engagement was well-structured — the scope was fixed before we started, and the handover memo meant that our own research staff understood the editorial approach clearly enough to maintain the extended glossary independently.
Customisation engagement — January 2025
David Man
Legal Counsel, Regional Insurance Group
I suggested three entries through the subscriber platform last year — two on private international law and one on indemnity clauses. All three were acknowledged promptly. Two appeared in the following quarterly update, and the third was deferred with a note explaining that the board wanted to revisit the underlying authority first. That kind of transparency is unusual and appreciated.
Individual subscription — March 2025
How Subscribers Have Used Lexicord
Inconsistent terminology across a multi-team litigation department
A 12-person in-house legal team at a Hong Kong-listed company found that different team members used the same procedural terms with slightly different meanings — causing friction in document review and internal briefings.
Institutional subscription with shared citation notes
The team subscribed at the institutional level. They designated the Lexicord glossary as the internal reference standard for procedural and civil law terminology, with team leads responsible for noting departures in specific matters where context required.
Reduced terminological disagreement in document review
Within six months the team reported a measurable reduction in terminology-related queries during document review cycles. They have renewed annually since 2022. The team also submitted four entry suggestions, two of which were incorporated.
"Having a single agreed-upon reference for our team has been more practical than I expected." — Head of Legal
Academic research programme with domain-specific terminology not covered by general legal dictionaries
A university research centre working on financial regulatory law needed a reference resource that covered the specific terminology of Hong Kong's securities regulatory framework — a subject area not well-served by standard common-law glossaries.
Editorial customisation engagement — 38 domain-specific entries
Lexicord delivered a customisation engagement over eight weeks, producing 38 new headwords with definitions citing the relevant SFO provisions and SFC codes. The integration was built into the centre's internal knowledge management platform, and a handover memo documented the editorial choices made throughout.
Domain glossary maintained independently for 18 months
Following handover, the centre has maintained and extended the custom glossary using the editorial approach set out in the handover memo. They commissioned a second customisation engagement in 2025 to cover additional subject matter as the programme expanded.
"The handover documentation made it possible for our research team to continue the work without needing to return to Lexicord for every update." — Research Director
Solo practitioner needing a reliable first reference for cross-border instruction work
An independent arbitration counsel receiving instructions from overseas clients regularly needed to explain Hong Kong-specific legal concepts — particularly procedural and evidence-related terms — that did not map cleanly onto the client's home jurisdiction.
Individual reader subscription
The subscriber took out an individual reader subscription and uses the glossary as a first reference when preparing client notes on Hong Kong procedural matters. The citation feature is used to pull the underlying authority into correspondence, which the subscriber notes adds credibility with clients unfamiliar with the jurisdiction.
Ongoing use since 2023
The subscription has been renewed each year. The subscriber also notes that some gaps in coverage — mainly around arbitration-specific procedure — were addressed following suggestions submitted through the platform, which was a positive experience.
"The fact that the entries cite the authority rather than just asserting a meaning makes a practical difference when you are explaining something to a foreign counterpart." — Arbitration Counsel
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Send an EnquiryCredentials and Affiliations
HK Law Society Knowledge Management Recommendation
Cited in Knowledge Management Committee guidance on internal reference tools, 2024.
Adopted by HK University Law Departments
Institutional subscriptions held by two Hong Kong university law departments since 2022.
HKLII Advisory Group Member
Participating in ongoing discussions on legal reference standards and citation conventions.
Cap. 486 Data Protection Compliant
Subscriber data handled in accordance with the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (Cap. 486).
A Reference Work Built to Be Returned To
From HKD 780 per year for individual readers to HKD 6,800 for institutional teams. Customisation engagements from HKD 2,100.
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