Page 18 - Leaders in Legal Business - a
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Legal Business News Publications Leaders in Legal Business
John Malpas6
Legal Week
Publisher
The birth of modern legal business news probably dates back to 1978, when Steve Brill founded The
American Lawyer magazine. Brill struck upon the idea of writing about the business of law while studying law at
Yale Law School when he saw a noticeboard on which law firms were advertising for recruits. “I was writing
magazine articles at the time,” he told David Lat, founder of the online news site Above the Law, in a video
interview, “and I remember thinking to myself they [law firms] all can’t be the same — they have different people,
some of them have to be more energetic than others, more successful than others, some of them probably offer
more opportunities to non-whites than others… and I just kept thinking I’d like to write about a law firm or two
as an institution.”
The American Lawyer remains one of the world’s leading legal business titles, but it has become a
crowded marketplace. There are several major magazines and websites that specialize in business law news and
analysis, and these are not confined to the world’s two leading legal centers of New York and London. In
Germany, for example, there is JUVE, while Italian lawyers seeking the latest news about the local legal market
can turn to TopLegal.
The rise of the legal business press has mirrored the
transformation of the legal profession into a multibillion-dollar
global business. When Brill conceived the idea of writing about the
business of law firms, they were relatively small, privately run
institutions unused to public scrutiny. Brill recalled the resistance
he received when setting out to report on the inner workings of law
firms, even when it came to such straightforward issues as what
deals they were acting on. Despite a move to public ownership in
some jurisdictions, the vast majority of law firms continue to be
privately run. The world’s leading commercial firms have grown
exponentially since the 1980s on the coat tails of globalization. At the same time, in most jurisdictions, regulations
restricting the ability of law firms to advertise and market their services have steadily been lifted. The emergence
of the Internet in the early 2000s provided an additional impetus to the legal press as it significantly reduced the
barriers to entry for legal news providers, given the possibility of accessing readers without the need to print and
distribute a magazine. The U.K. site RollOnFriday, which was set up in 2000, and the U.S.’s Above the Law,
which was in launched in 2006, are two prominent examples of online-only news sites.
What do these media outlets cover? The same principal outlined by Brill when he struck upon the idea of
founding a magazine covering legal business applies today as it did then. While all the world’s legal business
magazines and websites have their areas of specialty, the common denominator between them is that they provide
news, commentary, and analysis about the business of the law. Typically, there is a focus on the activities of law
firms — information about the work that they are undertaking, the strategies they are pursuing, and their financial
performance. There is also coverage about the markets in which law firms operate that seeks to identify trends,
opportunities, and threats. While recent years have witnessed an explosion in the number of legal blogs that
provide commentary about the legal market from all sorts of angles, there remains a need for a body of trained,
professional journalists whose job it is to seek out the information about law firms and their markets that bloggers
use as material for their blogs and tweets.
6 John Malpas is publisher of Legal Week, which is one of Incisive Media's flagship titles. He was previously editor and editor-in-chief of Legal Week and
was a senior member of the team that launched the magazine in 1999. Since its launch, Legal Week has established itself as one of the world's leading media
brands catering for the international business law community.
11
John Malpas6
Legal Week
Publisher
The birth of modern legal business news probably dates back to 1978, when Steve Brill founded The
American Lawyer magazine. Brill struck upon the idea of writing about the business of law while studying law at
Yale Law School when he saw a noticeboard on which law firms were advertising for recruits. “I was writing
magazine articles at the time,” he told David Lat, founder of the online news site Above the Law, in a video
interview, “and I remember thinking to myself they [law firms] all can’t be the same — they have different people,
some of them have to be more energetic than others, more successful than others, some of them probably offer
more opportunities to non-whites than others… and I just kept thinking I’d like to write about a law firm or two
as an institution.”
The American Lawyer remains one of the world’s leading legal business titles, but it has become a
crowded marketplace. There are several major magazines and websites that specialize in business law news and
analysis, and these are not confined to the world’s two leading legal centers of New York and London. In
Germany, for example, there is JUVE, while Italian lawyers seeking the latest news about the local legal market
can turn to TopLegal.
The rise of the legal business press has mirrored the
transformation of the legal profession into a multibillion-dollar
global business. When Brill conceived the idea of writing about the
business of law firms, they were relatively small, privately run
institutions unused to public scrutiny. Brill recalled the resistance
he received when setting out to report on the inner workings of law
firms, even when it came to such straightforward issues as what
deals they were acting on. Despite a move to public ownership in
some jurisdictions, the vast majority of law firms continue to be
privately run. The world’s leading commercial firms have grown
exponentially since the 1980s on the coat tails of globalization. At the same time, in most jurisdictions, regulations
restricting the ability of law firms to advertise and market their services have steadily been lifted. The emergence
of the Internet in the early 2000s provided an additional impetus to the legal press as it significantly reduced the
barriers to entry for legal news providers, given the possibility of accessing readers without the need to print and
distribute a magazine. The U.K. site RollOnFriday, which was set up in 2000, and the U.S.’s Above the Law,
which was in launched in 2006, are two prominent examples of online-only news sites.
What do these media outlets cover? The same principal outlined by Brill when he struck upon the idea of
founding a magazine covering legal business applies today as it did then. While all the world’s legal business
magazines and websites have their areas of specialty, the common denominator between them is that they provide
news, commentary, and analysis about the business of the law. Typically, there is a focus on the activities of law
firms — information about the work that they are undertaking, the strategies they are pursuing, and their financial
performance. There is also coverage about the markets in which law firms operate that seeks to identify trends,
opportunities, and threats. While recent years have witnessed an explosion in the number of legal blogs that
provide commentary about the legal market from all sorts of angles, there remains a need for a body of trained,
professional journalists whose job it is to seek out the information about law firms and their markets that bloggers
use as material for their blogs and tweets.
6 John Malpas is publisher of Legal Week, which is one of Incisive Media's flagship titles. He was previously editor and editor-in-chief of Legal Week and
was a senior member of the team that launched the magazine in 1999. Since its launch, Legal Week has established itself as one of the world's leading media
brands catering for the international business law community.
11
