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Leaders in Legal Business
content at the point of need. Exactly how high up the value chain they sit will depend in large part on how
successful they are in applying technology to their content.
One of the best examples of a publisher succeeding by playing a specific role at a key stage of the legal
process workflow is Practical Law.4 It identified major inefficiencies around the production and maintenance of
what is essentially generic content, ranging from current awareness to standard contract templates.
By the turn of the millennium, U.K. business law firms had streamlined their processes by employing
non-fee earning lawyers to work on their own knowledge management as professional support lawyers (PSLs).
This was one of the early examples of firms breaking down their processes and identifying areas that could be
handled more efficiently. Librarians and PSLs were charged with providing front-line lawyers with databanks of
content that they could use in their practice. Fee earners were given basic resources to which they could apply
their skill and experience to add value — for example, in negotiating an agreement rather than drafting it from
scratch.
What Practical Law saw then was that there was little difference in much of the output of PSLs among
firms. By hiring, replicating, and in some ways improving what these PSLs did, it was able to produce digital
products that became integrated in clients’ workflow in a way that made them nearly indispensable.
Without the confluence of process reengineering and technological advances, this would not have been
possible.
Publishers like Practical Law, which bring real efficiencies to the table, sit squarely with the growing
band of disruptors that are helping to drive change in the legal market (e.g., new model law firms such as Axiom
Law,5 legal process outsourcers (LPOs), and the plethora of e-discovery providers).
As the legal market evolves and the players find their places on the value chain, there will inevitably be
competitive tensions between publishers and their largest clients: law firms. Publishers providing powerful but
easy-to-use research platforms or automated suites of contracts will rub up against law firms that have not yet
embraced change and are focused on what they can do beyond the commoditized and vanilla. The relationships
between publishers and LPOs will be interesting to watch as well. LPOs, while offering efficiencies in many areas
over law firms or in-house legal teams, currently offer services to clients in some areas where a publisher would
instinctively want to offer a product to a much larger set of clients at a lower rate.
Globalization
The continued globalization of international markets and business is another powerful force that is having
a major impact on the legal market. In-house counsel at multinational firms must stay on top of an ever-multiplying
set of laws and regulations in a growing number of countries. This increasingly complex and interconnected global
regulatory environment has seen law firms forge alliances or open offices across the globe. Often deterred by the
multitude of languages that prevent economies of scale, publishers have been slow to follow, covering
developments in smaller jurisdictions at a relatively high level. This is something that technology will surely
address in the foreseeable future.
Revenue Models
With the exception of those focused on news and opinion journalism, legal publishers have not been beset
by the challenges facing the wider newspaper and magazine industry as it grapples with declining advertising
revenues and customers’ reluctance to go behind the paywall in a world where so much information online is free.
Newspapers are focusing on high-quality, often long-form journalism to build loyalty with readers and convince
them to use their credit cards. This is exactly the kind of content on which legal publishers have focused.
Those with a co-publishing, financed content model generally ensure that their projects are financially
underwritten in advance. They may be free to air, require registration, or require a subscription fee from one or
4 PRACTICAL LAW, http://us.practicallaw.com/ (last visited March 14, 2015).
5 AXIOM LAW, http://www.axiomlaw.com/ (last visited March 15, 2015).
140
content at the point of need. Exactly how high up the value chain they sit will depend in large part on how
successful they are in applying technology to their content.
One of the best examples of a publisher succeeding by playing a specific role at a key stage of the legal
process workflow is Practical Law.4 It identified major inefficiencies around the production and maintenance of
what is essentially generic content, ranging from current awareness to standard contract templates.
By the turn of the millennium, U.K. business law firms had streamlined their processes by employing
non-fee earning lawyers to work on their own knowledge management as professional support lawyers (PSLs).
This was one of the early examples of firms breaking down their processes and identifying areas that could be
handled more efficiently. Librarians and PSLs were charged with providing front-line lawyers with databanks of
content that they could use in their practice. Fee earners were given basic resources to which they could apply
their skill and experience to add value — for example, in negotiating an agreement rather than drafting it from
scratch.
What Practical Law saw then was that there was little difference in much of the output of PSLs among
firms. By hiring, replicating, and in some ways improving what these PSLs did, it was able to produce digital
products that became integrated in clients’ workflow in a way that made them nearly indispensable.
Without the confluence of process reengineering and technological advances, this would not have been
possible.
Publishers like Practical Law, which bring real efficiencies to the table, sit squarely with the growing
band of disruptors that are helping to drive change in the legal market (e.g., new model law firms such as Axiom
Law,5 legal process outsourcers (LPOs), and the plethora of e-discovery providers).
As the legal market evolves and the players find their places on the value chain, there will inevitably be
competitive tensions between publishers and their largest clients: law firms. Publishers providing powerful but
easy-to-use research platforms or automated suites of contracts will rub up against law firms that have not yet
embraced change and are focused on what they can do beyond the commoditized and vanilla. The relationships
between publishers and LPOs will be interesting to watch as well. LPOs, while offering efficiencies in many areas
over law firms or in-house legal teams, currently offer services to clients in some areas where a publisher would
instinctively want to offer a product to a much larger set of clients at a lower rate.
Globalization
The continued globalization of international markets and business is another powerful force that is having
a major impact on the legal market. In-house counsel at multinational firms must stay on top of an ever-multiplying
set of laws and regulations in a growing number of countries. This increasingly complex and interconnected global
regulatory environment has seen law firms forge alliances or open offices across the globe. Often deterred by the
multitude of languages that prevent economies of scale, publishers have been slow to follow, covering
developments in smaller jurisdictions at a relatively high level. This is something that technology will surely
address in the foreseeable future.
Revenue Models
With the exception of those focused on news and opinion journalism, legal publishers have not been beset
by the challenges facing the wider newspaper and magazine industry as it grapples with declining advertising
revenues and customers’ reluctance to go behind the paywall in a world where so much information online is free.
Newspapers are focusing on high-quality, often long-form journalism to build loyalty with readers and convince
them to use their credit cards. This is exactly the kind of content on which legal publishers have focused.
Those with a co-publishing, financed content model generally ensure that their projects are financially
underwritten in advance. They may be free to air, require registration, or require a subscription fee from one or
4 PRACTICAL LAW, http://us.practicallaw.com/ (last visited March 14, 2015).
5 AXIOM LAW, http://www.axiomlaw.com/ (last visited March 15, 2015).
140
