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Legal Business Publishing
Tony Harriss1
Non Executive Director,
Law Business Research
The Evolution of Legal Publishing: Who Will Survive?
What does the future hold for the legal market and the legal publishing sector?
Will a Korean client 3D-print a chip holding all U.S. case law to plug directly into her
neural pathway in a William Gibson-esque 2030?
Will a technology giant such as Google have applied artificial intelligence to merger
control regulations worldwide, enabling companies to bypass both law firms and legal publishers?
Perhaps cohorts of micro-bloggers will replace the legal publishing behemoths by
delivering niche content to defined audiences funded as law firm marketing exercises, or by micro-
revenue streams from Taboola and Google ads?
The sharing economy may take hold, establishing one or many legal wikis that leave
publishers disintermediated.
Will lawyers be automated out of existence? Or will it all still just be about getting the right
content to the right people at the right time?
Technology — Friend or Foe?
With the application of technology, the publishing industry as a whole is undergoing its
biggest revolution since Gutenberg. At the same time, technology, process engineering, and
commercial pressures are changing the legal services market beyond recognition. Sitting at the
nexus of these two industries, legal publishing has changed dramatically in the last decade and the
pace of that change is only set to increase.
Legal publishing is just one trade vertical. Lessons learned in other sectors, such as medical
or tax, will be transferred. Major technological developments in another area, when applied to law,
may be more powerful than anything yet developed in the legal space.
Legal publishers used to sell textbooks or standard forms in loose-leaf volumes; now users
complete online forms about transactions that generate a full suite of documents instantly, while
algorithms compare documents in order to look for unusual language. Like many of their
1 Tony Harriss is the Non Executive Director for both Law Business Research and Globe Business Media Group. Established in 1996, Globe is a
business-to-business content and connections company, specializing in the legal and intellectual property markets worldwide. It produces market-
leading information, data, networking, software, and marketing services for lawyers, C-suite executives, and HR professionals, and their
organizations, globally.
The author would like to thank Alex Morrall, a long-time peer in the legal media industry, and Carolyn Boyle, Globe’s editorial services director,
for their invaluable input.
204
Tony Harriss1
Non Executive Director,
Law Business Research
The Evolution of Legal Publishing: Who Will Survive?
What does the future hold for the legal market and the legal publishing sector?
Will a Korean client 3D-print a chip holding all U.S. case law to plug directly into her
neural pathway in a William Gibson-esque 2030?
Will a technology giant such as Google have applied artificial intelligence to merger
control regulations worldwide, enabling companies to bypass both law firms and legal publishers?
Perhaps cohorts of micro-bloggers will replace the legal publishing behemoths by
delivering niche content to defined audiences funded as law firm marketing exercises, or by micro-
revenue streams from Taboola and Google ads?
The sharing economy may take hold, establishing one or many legal wikis that leave
publishers disintermediated.
Will lawyers be automated out of existence? Or will it all still just be about getting the right
content to the right people at the right time?
Technology — Friend or Foe?
With the application of technology, the publishing industry as a whole is undergoing its
biggest revolution since Gutenberg. At the same time, technology, process engineering, and
commercial pressures are changing the legal services market beyond recognition. Sitting at the
nexus of these two industries, legal publishing has changed dramatically in the last decade and the
pace of that change is only set to increase.
Legal publishing is just one trade vertical. Lessons learned in other sectors, such as medical
or tax, will be transferred. Major technological developments in another area, when applied to law,
may be more powerful than anything yet developed in the legal space.
Legal publishers used to sell textbooks or standard forms in loose-leaf volumes; now users
complete online forms about transactions that generate a full suite of documents instantly, while
algorithms compare documents in order to look for unusual language. Like many of their
1 Tony Harriss is the Non Executive Director for both Law Business Research and Globe Business Media Group. Established in 1996, Globe is a
business-to-business content and connections company, specializing in the legal and intellectual property markets worldwide. It produces market-
leading information, data, networking, software, and marketing services for lawyers, C-suite executives, and HR professionals, and their
organizations, globally.
The author would like to thank Alex Morrall, a long-time peer in the legal media industry, and Carolyn Boyle, Globe’s editorial services director,
for their invaluable input.
204
