It's been a bit of a up-and-down month in the world of legal publishing and I could choose to write yet another piece on the expected demise of LexisNexis or those lawyers taking Westlaw to court but we all know that those records are getting a bit worn.

But…… thinking about this issue and the amount of articles that have appeared on both these subjects since the new year has made me realize that in the past decade of publishing my pdf newsletter "Law Librarians News" and then subsequently my House of Butter blog ,we've all made huge leaps when it comes to the reporting of the legal publishing industry.

I started publishing Law Librarians News in Sydney nigh on a decade ago. We are now almost 250 issues old!

At the time I started publishing, any information about the sector was either tightly held by management at the major legal publishers or operated as gossip between information professionals at law firms, and even then, only the larger ones.

Library managers at smaller firms were, literally, through no fault of their own "clueless "about the publishers' modus operandi. Except that they knew they were being charged too much for services and couldn't do a thing about it other than to operate in that budget hinterland between publisher and law firm partner.

But a number of factors over the years — including the downturn, technology, social media, a change of attitude in libraries, and also the fact that a growing number ex-publisher employees have been brave enough to write and challenge industry standards — have, in turns, changed the information landscape on the subject.

Not only are there newsletters, blogs and websites but we also note that the subject of legal and professional publishing is also a matter for media in general as well as for those companies whose job it is to analyze market sectors.

Only this past week we saw a report indicating that the global professional publishing industry is to grow 3% over next year ,which made us chuckle somewhat, because only a few years back with growth at around 13-15% a quarter at both Lexis and Westlaw, information like this was not deemed worthy of an industry report never mind a mention in the media.

So, to celebrate this fact I thought it would be worth highlighting some of the writers and publications now regularly commenting on and writing about the industry that I attempt to read regularly.

It's also worth noting that in years past there was a distinctive split between those who wrote about publishing and those who wrote about technology. Although not quite moot these two areas are no longer as divergent as they once were and I'd suggest you'd learn as much about legal publishing in 2012 from Charles Christian and Kevin O'Keefe as you will from my column. Although I probably shouldn't tell you that.

LLN's House Of Butter's Reading List:

USA

• Law Librarian Blog : A Member Of The Law Professor Blogs Network : http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/
• Lex Monitor by Kevin O'Keefe http://www.lexmonitor.com/
• 3 Geeks & A Law Blog http://www.geeklawblog.com/
• Moritz legal Blog http://moritzlegalinformation.blogspot.com/
• Pinhawk Librarian News Digest http://www.pinhawk.com/newsletters.php#newsletter*6*0 ( you'll need to scroll through their endless newsletters to get a sample of this one)

Canada

• SLAW obviously !
• I especially enjoy reading anything by
• Ruth Bird http://www.slaw.ca/author/bird/
• Gary Rodrigues http://www.slaw.ca/author/rodrigues/
• Robert McKay http://www.slaw.ca/author/mckay/
• LegalPubs.CA http://www.legalpubs.ca/

UK

• Charles Christian Legal Technology Insider / The Orange Rag http://www.legaltechnology.com/
• Delia Venables http://www.venables.co.uk/
• BIALL Blog http://biall.blogspot.com/

Another year gone and in the world of legal content / publishing I’d like to suggest it's been one of the most important we’ve had since the mid 90’s and the advent of the CD Rom.

Although most of 2011 has been fairly quiet with the usual round of product developments, upgrades and rejigs. The last quarter of the year has more than hinted that the upheavals of 2008 / 2009 have now filtered through to the core modus operandi of the companies whose job it is to distribute legal content through to the professions, business, government and the wider public.

Now that these legal content generators can no longer rely on the financial sector to improve revenues in any significant way and law firms are becoming increasingly Scrooge like in the way they control their information budgets ( and as for Government budgets in 2012 on both sides of the pond…. it doesn’t bear thinking about !).

I’d suggest that the hints that either Lexis or Kluwer be subsumed by another organisation in 2012 may not be as far fetched as one may have thought only 6 or 8 months ago.

Of course LLN isn’t privy, and never will be, to the financials of these companies but like everything else in the world today revenues are shrinking and one thing I’ve learnt in the years reporting on this industry is that boards and shareholders demand growth figures similar to the Chinese economy on steroids. 

One would either have to be using Colombia’s most famous export on a regular basis or be a Euro MP to believe that’s going to happen again sometime in the next decade. The solution will be the tried and tested one .. sell for short term gain.

At LLN although we don’t really believe that Apple and Google were put on the planet to do good and permanently make us feel warm and fuzzy, maybe it is time to hand over the reins to these two technology giants both of whom have already dipped their toes into the legal regulatory publishing market and are busy either putting their technology into law firms or working on providing the legal market with mobile devices and apps to change the way legal information is delivered, shared, disseminated and used by businesses, the professions, government and the public.

We’d hope that both of these companies would be the ones that could put serious investment into the industry, turn a buck in the process and improve the way legal content is published, managed and distributed. Especially so in the important new markets such as the Middle East, China and South America . Places where a Twitter-like sea change could benefit all who want to see rule of law codified and accessible to everyone.

In reality I don’t think this is going to happen in 2012. If there is consolidation in the market it is more than likely that TR and Bloomberg will be the players and we’ll see a new form of the duopoly with the same or similar people at the top of the tree running the industry as it has been for the past couple of decades.

So what’s in store for 2012 ?

If we see what will be termed as mergers between the big players (reality check: merger = sale) we will as I suggest above just be served another version of what we’ve had for the past while.

The free legal content world will have to potter along on with ever decreasing support from government and relevant institutions. In the scheme of things this won’t really affect content from jurisdictions such as the States, UK, Canada, Australia et al but the more "far flung" locations may well suffer unless a friendly benefactor or two steps in. Remember the troubles AustLII went through with financing a couple of years back when things weren’t as bad as they are now. It would be more than a shame if the LII group and others of a similar ilk couldn’t continue their work in a meaningful way.

There’ll be plenty of new technology to serve the content especially if these new content delivery services and tech products and services allow law firms and other big users of legal content to dispose of human capital

Finally legal analysis titles or what we all used to call law books will become increasingly sidelined as serious analysis becomes the domain of university publishers who in all reality only apply about 10% of their publishing programmes to legal titles ( That said OUP legal publishing must be congratulated for being the only academic publishers to still believe in the form and are actually working on developing new titles and products)

Oh yes we almost forgot . The world of legal media. More of the same i’d imagine. Lot’s of re-hashed press releases. The odd well researched piece that you are equally likely to find over the year on SLAW, WSJ.com or in the Economist , Guardian (UK) or even in the likes of the LRB and similar publications. It still all about conferences, awards ceremonies and over priced reports. We’re hoping that at some point partners will see through the fug and realize it’s a ride they’ve been taken on for far too long.

On that note we hope you had a great Christmas and New Year and are prepared for what the Mayans have in store for us over the next 12 months !

As the world's economy heads inexorably for another meltdown it's instructive to see where the management teams of the larger legal publishers are looking in order to try and keep shareholders and boards happy in the final quarter of 2011.

Two immediate examples come to mind and make us wonder where they can go next.

Option 1 : New International Markets

Now the press releases about China have died down as the publishers (like the rest of us) have realized it's actually much harder to make money in the PRC than initially thought. Especially so when you have to spend your entire working budget keeping Chinese government departments, publishers and people happy rather than selling direct into market as you had hoped.

So goodbye China as a major growth are and hello the Middle East. Well , not the entire Middle East. The Gulf States, to be exact.

In my post "Westlaw's Arab Autumn" we reported on Westlaw's recent launch of Westlaw Gulf, which they describe as "a new legal research service created specifically for the legal professionals in the Middle East".

The promo goes into standard legal publisher speak with talk of a "full suite", "an unrivaled database of legislation and cases". What isn't the least surprising is the fact that criminal or civil law issues aren't really covered. Rather it's all about Westlaw Gulf providing "lawyers with expertly written English translations of over 8,000 of the most commercially relevant and widely used laws from major Gulf States, including Kuwait, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia."

The very obvious subtext reads: We're happy to work with politically repressive states with lots of oil revenue on commercial legal information but in no way are we going to threaten perceived future revenues by actually publishing legal information that might relate for example to Women's Rights, The Rights Of Religious Minorities, The Rights Of Foreign Workers, Family Law and so on and so forth.

Why do I mention the above? Because it seems to me that nobody at Westlaw has bothered to turn on CNN International, BBC and Al Jazeera over the past 8 months and had a serious think about what will be the results of the mass political movements in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya , Syria as well as the changes afoot in Morocco and Jordan. I know there's money in corporate and commercial law in the Gulf States, but how about wider publishing initiatives in civil rights legislation and and family law, for example, in these new or soon to be fledgling democracies. They will remember you for it in the future.

Option 2: Ally Yourself With A Well Known Brand

If you are looking for a company who have tried everything in the last 36 months to attempt to keep their relevance in legal publishing, I'd suggest that Martindale Hubbell would top that list . And now through their connections they have landed what I imagine they think is their golden marketing goose.

This past week they've announced via a press release that:

LexisNexis (www.lexisnexis.com), a leading provider of content and technology solutions, today announced an agreement with Fortune Magazine and ALM Media Properties to help them compile and publish a "Top Ranked Law Firms" special report to appear in Fortune's December 26 "Investor's Guide" issue. The list of firms recognized in the report will also be featured on CNNMoney.com, law.com and martindale.com®.

It's another attempt to keep their ever-fading profile up in our books, and if I were a shareholder I wouldn't be that impressed by that news. What I'd be more interested to know is will MH be generating revenue from this approach or is it actually going to cost them money?

Finally as I'm enjoying being a bit anti-establishment in this post I'd like to suggest that Bloomberg Legal be evicted from all legal libraries until Occupy Wall Street protestors are allowed to return with tents and sleeping bags to Zuccotti park.

While the US government deals with having less A's these days it’s been AAA (August Acquisition Action) in the world of legal publishing.

We’re not sure though whether we should adding a plus or minus after those three A’s.

Law Librarians News readers will know that we’ve touched upon this subject in our last two editorials

Usually we see acquisition and deal season in the world of legal publishing happen either post Easter or in September to combine with the Partridge hunting season (Sep 1 – Feb 1) in the UK.

But for reasons we haven’t yet deciphered August 2011 has been littered with press releases from legal publishers telling us who and what they’ve bought or who they are doing deals with.

We’ve also been keeping an eye on the world of legal technology via the Orange Rag blog published by Charles Christian of Legal technology Insider and the story there isn’t dissimilar

A quick listing of headlines on House of Butter reveals the following activity in August

• Bloomberg announcing their desire to purchase BNA
• Wolters Kluwer Corporate Legal Services Completes Acquisition of NRAI
• Bloomsbury’s Content Licensing Deal With PLC
• American Bar Association and Apple Have Partnering to Publish Legal E-Books
• Lexis Renew Content Deal With NY Times
• CCH in New Zealand Buys NZ Content Solutions Company Business Fitness
• Apple & ABA Partner to Publish Legal E-Books

Meanwhile early September has been much quieter than we’d expect.

Here at HOB we don’t have any real explanation or theory on this but we wonder if this is just another illustration that since the 2008 crash and the raft of new players entering the legal content market there is a new dynamic in play that will over the next 2 -3 years fundamentally change the map of the legal publishing and content world.

On a different tack we note that the “Fastcase 50” 2011 has just been published.

The listing details Fastcase’s 50 most influential people in legal information this year. You can see the full list at http://www.fastcase.com/fastcase50/

A quick scan will reveals a vaguely interesting list of individuals with no major surprises except for the fact that we couldn’t find one person on the list who wasn’t North American-based, so we’d like to know why Fastcase couldn’t see beyond their nose on this one.

Why for example have Graham Greenleaf at Austlii and Ruth Bird at the Bodleian Library Oxford not made the list? And why don’t we see one UK, Australian or European legal blogger on the list? Maybe in future they should call it the “North American Fastcase 50.

Out of the blue (well to us anyway) House of Butter learnt that BAILii was teetering after it became clear that UK government sources of money were to become increasingly difficult to access as the (UK) coalition austerity belt tightened.

On 10 June we learnt from a number of UK LIS LAW posts and BAILii themselves that although they’d still receive UK government funds until March 2012 the organization would have to appeal for more funds from other parties.

Their funding page was updated with the following appeal notice a few days later

Why is BAILII appealing for funds?

BAILII's operating costs have been running at approximately £160,000 per annum, excluding replacement of computer hardware and other items which are not incurred annually. This figure will be reduced following an offer by The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies to reduce the quarterly overhead charge which it makes to BAILII for use of office space at the Institute and other services.

BAILII's future is uncertain because of the lack of secure funding to meet these costs. 

A major funder has decided not to continue funding BAILII, and there is uncertainty about the continuing provision of funding by other major funders.

 If BAILII is to survive, it is essential that BAILII should obtain new sources of funding before its funds run out. We need much more support, partly to replace major sponsors who have indicated that they are not able, or may not be able, to continue funding, and partly to make up for the fact that in any event BAILII's expenditure has been exceeding its income from sponsorship in recent years.

This appeal is mainly directed towards sets of Chambers and solicitors' firms. Legal associations, academic institutions and publishers are also invited to contribute. We are confident we can reach our target provided that all those who use BAILII and who want to go on using BAILII respond to this urgent call for help.

You can make a donation to BAILII on-line via the Charities Aid Foundation. Make a note of the charity number, 1084803, and enter it in the "Charity Number" box on the CAF site.

For more detailed information regarding BAILII's appeal, click here, or contact us at: appeal@bailii.org.

For more information, contact:
Joe Ury, BAILII Executive Director: joe.ury@sas.ac.uk

It appears that BAILII has seen through this crisis in the short term with a healthy £30,000.00 donation from Practical Law Company and on their sponsors page we can see that in 2011 they’ve also received the following donations.

• Law Society Of Scotland £2000
• Bar Council of England & Wales £6000
• Inner Temple £6000
• Greys Inn £6000
• Middle Temple £6000
• Institute of Advanced Legal Studies £4000
  Essex Court £2000
• Landmark Chambers £2000
• Bird & Bird £1000
• Lewis & Silkin £1000
• Sahota Slctrs £150
• Wilmer Hale £1000
• Crime Line £2,500
• Criminal Lawyers £1000
• Rating & Valuation Reporter £500

The various sets do have to be congratulated for their donations but the simple fact of the matter is that, as the BAILII website states, it costs £160,000 to run the site and adding up 2011 donations listed on the website they’ve only managed, so far, to raise £71,150 for the year. Less than half what they need to just keep ticking over.

But before we all put our hands up in the air and admit defeat it’s worth noting that back in May 2007 AustLII, the daddy of all the LIIs, experienced exactly the same problem. 

The Australian Financial Review reported at the time

Austlii may have to scale back its operations because it has failed to secure a grant from the Australian Research Council for the first time in seven years. The service is $A400,000 short of what it needs and has already had to lose five of its twelve staff members.

Support from professional legal organizations in Australia does not look as though it will be forthcoming.

In the last week of April the NSW Law Society told Austlii in a letter that they would not provide any funding for 07-08. The AFR reports that chief executive at the Law Institute of Victoria, Michael Brett Young, said Austlii would struggle to find support for its proposal of a $20 levy per lawyer per year with its membership. 'Quite a lot of our members don’t use the service. I’m sure they would feel aggrieved having to pay for a service they don’t use.'

The AFR also quotes, Jan Martin, the Law Society of South Australia’s executive director as saying that she would have to create an extra levy to support Austlii and wasn’t sure whether her members would support that.

It appears that all state law societies and bar associations in Australia who do not already support Austlii have referred the funding issue to the Law Council of Australia. The Law Council’s president, Tim Bugg, told the AFR that he was 'very concerned'. 

Fast forward 4 years and we can see that Graham Greenleaf has been very busy consolidating financing issues 

Here on AustLII's funding page we can count close to 200 donating organisations drawn from Australian federal and state governments, the courts, universities, ;aw firms, banks and even a major publisher such as Kluwer who donated $A50K this year. 

Even more pointedly in 2011 AustLII have managed to raise $A275,038 just from the Aus Legal Services Board, which means Greenleaf has managed to raise from one organisation twice as much as BAILII has from all its sponsors so far this year.

He’s also managed to spread the burden so that most major Australian law firms as well as public institutions now commit some money.t And we note that he’s managed to pull in money from a wider range of companies including the National Australia Bank, Flight Centre, AusTax accountants and even Appliances Online.

Yet again it appears that Greenleaf has been leading by example. He was the first to put the LII idea into action and the prophet that has ensured that LIIs have come to life in jurisdictions the world over.

His organisation was the first to face a serious funding crisis and obviously the first to ensure that funding budgets are not entirely reliant on one or two government-based organisations.

BAILII now needs to put a similar plan into action. There’s enough money flooding the square mile to fund a service like this, as much as the law firms and in-house legal departments cry poor.

So who’s next . We’ve heard that PacLII is struggling, but then again if your funding is restricted to the following it’s not surprising that the pot is emptying:

They write:

The Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute (PacLII) receives ongoing funding from New Zealand's International Aid and Development Agency (NZAID)

Other contributors to PacLII have been:

• University of the South Pacific, School of Law
• Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID)
• The Commonwealth Secretariat
• Papua New Guinea Law and Justice Sector Program (AusAID)
• Vanuatu Law and Justice Sector Program (AusAID)
• Pacific Judicial Development Program (NZAID)
• Queensland Law Society
• Sasakawa Peace Foundation

And we extend great thanks to those aid donors, who have had the vision and determination to create and maintain PacLII for the benefit of the people of the Pacific island nations.

Not one private company in sight.. Doesn’t bode well for the future

If there’s anything to be learnt from these three LII experiences it is that each LII needs urgently to learn how to raise money from the private sector and become less reliant on government, aid organisations and the tertiary education sector.

Here at House of Butter we’d also suggest that Greenleaf use his organisational skills to create a central funding office for the LIIs as a whole and then start to tap law firms, banks, accountants, online and the corporate sector generally for regular annual payments into the LIIs that serve the jurisdictions they work in.

If 2007/8 hadn’t already alerted the LIIs to their sometime precarious funding situations the Greek / Portuguese / Irish potential default situations should make people realise that public money should be seen as the last option for funding rather than the first

Finally we decided to have a quick run through some of the more established Lii sites for funding information only to find that we couldn’t find any at all:

Funding Pages For Other LIIs

CanLII:

They don’t tell us much just that “CanLII is funded by the members of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, in other words, the law societies of Canada’s provinces and territories and the Chambre des notaires du Québec.”

HKLII:

In usual HK style we’re told that it’s supported but not by whom or for how much

IRLII:

They write: "We are grateful for the kind sponsorship provided by the Law Faculty University College Cork and by the Arthur Cox Foundation." That’s not going to last long then, is it . Come on where’s Bono when you need him.

SafLII:

As far as we can see there’s not a jot about funding on their site

LII of India:

In very Indian fashion we’re told we’ll be told about the site’s funding in a report that isn’t yet available.

Lii Cornell:

The link above will take you to a online donation page and you can find out about making corporate donations at http://topics.law.cornell.edu/lii/business_opportunities But we were unable to find a page listing who’s actually funding the site.

There’s been a good couple of years since the credit crunch kicked in that Law Librarians News and House of Butter have really quite enjoyed reporting the business of legal publishing.

Revenues & profits down at the duopoly, talk of Google Law and more; as well as a host of new ideas and concepts for the future of legal publishing. OK some of those ideas were either over ambitious or a little bit crackpot, but fun to investigate and report.

At least though, it felt for a glorious 18 months or so that change was in the air.

And change there has been, but as one Mr Rotten said at the San Francisco’s Winterland on 14 January 1978, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-BSoaSzN04&feature=related) at the end of the aptly titled Stooges cover No Fun, Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated.

And that’s a bit how we feel here at House of Butter.

When the Crunch came along we willed change.

Short Digression: As we’re referencing music in this post to keep the interest levels up here’s two great crunch songs

Crunch Song 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9qAcV4dFbQ

Crunch Song 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw0G7H1EOho&feature=related

Unfortunately our naive dream that Lexis or West would change their spots to reflect a new market was short lived. Remember the talk at West of library consultants about a year ago. They didn’t last long did they? — along with the other “savings” (read redundancies) throughout the publishing side of both businesses and the move from publishing original content to “process” and the mass purchase of Legal IT companies the world over.

Which leads us to those hamsters. Once again the quarterly reports are coming in thick and fast, the tone of which remind us of those furry little creatures who like to spend all their time hopping in the wheel of death and going round and round, faster and faster ….round and round, faster and faster and so on and so forth.

We’ll use as our example the latest transcript from T. West’s Q.1 2011 report by chief legal division hamster Tom Glocer. You can, though, substitute any legal publishing executive (hamster) from either of the companies and it’d all read the same.

Mr Glocer at West legal is a happy little hamster again. The wheel is beginning to turn faster again and one can sense the excitement levels building as this happens. Here we go back to 2004/5/6/7.

Revenues are up again and $US40 million “savings” is the figure they are working toward by year’s end. Nothing more enjoyable than writing endless reports identifying where “savings” can be made and all the better that we can all feel comfortable returning to pre-crash semantics in press releases and company reports.

Here’s a taste. It’s not so much what’s said but how it’s said; and it's also worth noting that the best way to build a legal content company is to sell a legal content division.

In the Legal segment, the benefits of our investments over the past few years are reflected in a 10% increase in revenues in the quarter, with contributions from across the unit. And in Markets, our $1.1 billion Enterprise business also grew 10% from increased demand for our low latency real-time offerings delivered over our new Elektron platform and from global expansion. 

Lastly, we're also focused on accelerating our organic growth by reallocating capital and talent to drive growth in returns across the company. Today, we announced the planned divestiture of 2 businesses in the Markets division, which, when combined with the proceeds of the previously announced sales of BAR/BRI and our Scandinavian Legal and Tax & Accounting businesses, are expected to deliver approximately $1 billion for reinvestment in the attractive opportunities that we continue to find in our core businesses.

Not much else for us to say on the topic except that every legal librarian should playlist this song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeTw_p_WglY) and share with their local legal publishing rep.

Finally, on an entirely different topic we’re currently impressed by UK firm Norton Rose who sent us a very detailed press release about the appointment of a new Chief Information Officer and KM Manager 

Rarely do law firms send out releases highlighting appointments in the information part of the firm and even more rarely do they send out releases placing positions like Information Officers on the same pedestal as Partners.

The Australian firm Blake Dawson Waldron used to do this but no longer. And, in fact, we’re struggling to count on one hand the number of times we’ve received press releases highlighting the plainly obvious fact that senior positions within the information-related part of a firm are as important as those of practitioners

We’d love to see more PR people at law firm taking their lead from Norton Rose

Here at House of Butter we don’t usually go in for advertorials but at the moment we are taken by a piece of software developed by a 25+ year old legal software company out of Sydney called EIS (Eurofield Information Systems) who have told us about an electronic looseleaf concept that they’ve developed out in the wilds of Chatswood (Northern Sydney suburb).

They say their software simply allows users to update a publication securely whilst keeping all past addendums in a easy to view list that also allows one to refer back to previous updates and view them all at the same time on your desktop

After years of listening to complaints from legal libraries at the cost of original paper based looseleaf and now their electronic replacements we were wondering if it was time to see if legal publishers could be persuaded to adopt this or similar software for looseleaf and other updating legal information services such as legislation updaters, precedent updates and so on and so forth

And if the major legal publishers aren’t interested we’d suggest that this software could be a cost efficient way for law firms to look at developing or adding to their own publishing arm. Both for electronic publications developed for internal consumption but also as a reliable way of developing online legal information based product to sell to clients and others.

Legal associations and other organizations with a knowledge base may also see benefit in this type of software.

Alfred Papallo the founder and MD at EIS has called his product eComPress and has already placed it with organisations including the International Accounting Standards Board, the OECD, WHO, as well as Random House, the Australian Army and most importantly as the core software running the Australian Parliament, House of Representatives Practice Manual 

So…. what does eCom Press purport to do?

Papallo tells us when an online user opens an eComPress legal publication its first thought, so to speak, is always to automatically check to see if there is a new update, and permanently flags the users’ publication.

if the publication is not current eCom Press offers them the opportunity to update. This ensures that the user knows that they have the latest version of a particular document or publication on their PC or Network. 

Rather than us re-inventing the wheel with regard to their pitch here’s what Papallo has to say about his product and company and we’ll allow you to determine its useability and practicality.

He writes :

Let me take this opportunity to introduce our company, and outline some background on the eComPress technology. 

Eurofield Information Solutions is a technology company, and we have developed the ATS and Consensus award winning eComPress electronic reference publishing technology from scratch, and have designed into it some very significant advantages over other output technologies.

eComPress is a proven and cost effective tool for the secure online distribution and update of reference publications that must be available to the user offline. It is extremely environmentally friendly and quantifiably superior and more secure than PDF, HTML, MS Word and other reference publication output technologies on at least eight (8) counts including: 

Size
Speed
Search
ease-of-use
security
annotation
networkability
scalability. 

More detail on the above at the end of the article

You can obtain various White Papers, Case Studies and demonstration publications from Free Downloads on the website, and here at EIS we have also recently added four brief video tutorials that give prospective users a good outline of the capability of the eComPress technology.

Tutorial One – Navigation & MultiView Screens http://www.eis.com.au/tutorial1/Navigation%20Tutorial%201%20standalone%20HD.html

Tutorial Two – Searching http://www.eis.com.au/tutorial2/Tutorial%202%20%20Standalone%20HD.html

Tutorial Three – Copying and Pasting & Smart Table Headings

http://www.eis.com.au/tutorial3/Tutorial%20Three%20-%20Final%20version%20HD.html 

Tutorial Four - Collaborate in Context with eComPress annotations http://www.eis.com.au/tutorial4/Tutorial%204%20-%20Final%20Version%20in%20HD.html 

Outlined below is a brief description of the eight quantifiable advantages that the eComPress technology will provide users via tutorial links

eComPress advantages are summarised below:

1. Superior search capability: eComPress searching is guaranteed to find all the information in the data – precisely and quickly – every time. Every word, number and alpha-numeric is indexed and searchable, and it supports multiple wildcard (?) and (*), and logical (Boolean) searching. The powerful FAST search saves time in the field, and is ideal for mission critical environments like the courtroom where the user needs a fast response.

2. Superior annotation: eComPress offers a powerful annotation system that allows users to easily add personal and network Notes. Even better, users, authors and editors can interact in context with these notes, and they are automatically transcribed in context to new and revised publication updates. eComPress annotations do not compromise the content in any way. eComPress Notes are ideal for preserving and sharing valuable IP, and lend themselves to Collaborate in Context between users of the publication.

3. Powerful User Interface: eComPress offers a superior user interface where the content in each view is always synchronised with the Tree Table of Contents. The HitMap displays where the hits are in the content, and the HitCount tells you the precise number of hits clearly describing the most relevant sections for that search criteria. The Drag-on provides instant access to the publication on your desktop, and using the multi-view screen, up to four separate areas of the publication or library can be searched and viewed concurrently. The intuitive user interface minimises training investment, the Drag-on provides instant access to mission critical information on the user’s desktop, and the MiltiView screen is ideal for cross-referencing different parts of the content.

4. Unmatched compression: Documents are permanently compressed at a bit level to as little as 10% of the original file size including the viewer. This is lossless compression and smaller than PDF, and output from other common compression tools. The substantially reduced publication size, improves server and communication efficiency and saves on-line delivery time and cost.

5. Security: eComPress files are uniquely encrypted and are easily password protected, are VeriSign RSA 128bit code signed, and use a superior 32 bit CRC to ensure all publications are complete and not corrupted, truncated or contaminated in transit. Built-in security to provide for rights management; and protects the publisher, content and user.

6. Built-in viewer: Unlike PDF, XPS, XML or MS Word, eComPress requires no other software to view, search or annotate the content. Users don’t have to download and install reader software. This means you never have generational issues with files. eComPress viewers are secure and by being encapsulated with the content, guarantee its security as well. eComPress content is also compatible with MS Office and other Windows-based software without corruption. eComPress publications are always complete and secure and just work on receipt.

7. LAN/WAN Server: eComPress publications come with powerful multi-user server software that also provides for licensing control of the number of concurrent users. Ideal for publisher licensing, and for users to collaborate in a corporate network environment.

8. Scalable: eComPress Portfolio enables eComPress files to be strung together to build comprehensive libraries that can be updated in an ad hoc manner yet still searched contiguously. Extensible publication library facility that is ideal for large platforms or product publication libraries!

In what seems like another age I wondered about the same question and decided to start publishing an online newsletter that most readers of this article will be aware of, Law Librarians News.

Then to keep up with trends and technology I also started publishing the House Of Butter blog and subsequently a Law Librarians News Twitter both of which appear, I hope, to be popular with an online readership.

It might appear that I’m doing my utmost to blow my own trumpet but it has always been somewhat of a surprise that it’s only those from the U.S. and the Canadians who seem to have understood that it’s imperative to try and keep tabs on what the legal publishers are doing in any given quarter or year and it is these individuals who are to be congratulated for information resources such as this site, SLAW or the always worth a read , the Joe Hodnicki-led Law Librarians Blog.

There are also a host of other independent North American legal information blogs publishing informative articles and posts regularly. Admittedly these sites are usually leaders for businesses supplying the legal industry with one information product or another. But that said the product propaganda tends top be kept to a sensible minimum and a selection of reports from these blogs in any given week of the year is usually a fairly reliable indicator of what’s happening in the North American legal information industry.

There’s only been one major blip in the last few years and that was the highly successful effort Westlaw Next put into bringing bloggers and information centres onside for the launch of that product.

Westlaw Next did a great job of persuading both legal library managers and bloggers that there was nothing closer to the company’s heart than pure love and affection for every legal librarian and writer on the North American continent. The honeymoon was of course, short lived, as we all learnt by mid 2010 when TR West started disappearing their “Library Relationship Managers”. I now get the feeling that many on the receiving end were more than miffed that they’d had the wool pulled over their eyes. As the Who once said, they “Won’t Be Fooled Again”

But elsewhere it’s been planet radio silence. A few official blogs the best of which being the BIALL (British & Irish Assoc Law Librarians ) blog report infrequently on some issues concerning the legal information publishing industry. Although if there’s something nasty to be said it’s normally said quietly amongst committee members as they are also generally clients with very large accounts.. God forbid one should anger senior sales managers at West or Lexis, just the fear of re-negotiating gigantic contracts is enough to make sure that issues are quietly resolved and only partially so, rather than made public.

The same applies to the majority of Law Library blogs, of which there are only a handful outside the US. They tend to start with a flurry and even the odd post suggesting that not all is always hunky dory with their suppliers tends to err on the side of caution. We’re yet to see a library blog that has decided to take the bull by the horns and go beyond standard advice for their library users on how to use the two main databases. Maybe the revolution is silent and that’s perceived by the users as the best way to deal with the legal publisher issue.

I can understand why the world of legal information might not always be the most exciting industry to report on but it does amaze me when I hear so many complaints that never get made public or even more surprising the absolute unhappiness many librarians want to share privately about the publishers but at the same time they’re equally adamant that their concerns should never go beyond a private conversation.

Now we come to new markets that both companies are making inroads into. South America, China & India.

 It goes without saying nobody in China is going to complain. Firstly it’s too hard and without a doubt there are more pressing details to deal with in the world that is China law. The South American market is still too small but I am constantly surprised that India, a country that’s got plenty to say about the entry of foreign law firms, doesn’t really have much to say about the likes of Lexis & Westlaw who are in the market and carving themselves a niche that could make them a lot of money

So although I’ve asked the question I’m not sure I know the answer. Is reporting the legal publishing market is simply too boring, too confusing or does it just feel like fighting a constant losing battle? 

As a writer on and about the industry all I can say is that this is exactly what executives at the major legal publishers would us to feel: a sense of ennui that defies action and therefore ensures writers and information managers will give up reporting on these secretive companies .

So to conclude: Congratulations to the North Americans and now it’s time for Australia and the UK amongst others to follow the lead and create independent information sources that help keep tabs on the suppliers.

Legal Information blogs outside North America

BIALL Blog http://biall.blogspot.com/

List of Law Librarian Blogs - http://aallcssis.pbworks.com/w/page/1189465/Law-Library-Blogs

Birbeck Library Blog http://birkbecklibrarylaw.blogspot.com/

Uni of Hong Kong http://obelix.lib.hku.hk/cdblog/?cat=40

Exploded Library – Australia – http://www.explodedlibrary.info/

China China China. 

It’s the mantra of global business & finance and following their lead comes the legal industry.

The flood of international law firms into the Asian region to service the new opportunities in an ever expanding legal market over the last decade has been phenomenal and in 2010 there’s a new gold rush for law firms with china connections for this year’s huge IPO boom

Where the law firms go, so go the feeders, all of them desperately hoping for a piece of the pie.

The region’s two leading locations with a rule of law based on the British common law system, Hong Kong and Singapore have for years benefited from wave after wave of Asia development because of and due to this colonial legacy.

Now though; like the firms, legal publishers of all stripes perceive China as a revenue generator that can longer be ignored. 

And in order to grab their slice, the publishers have seen over the past five years that they too have to work on the mainland in order to have any chance of making the right political and business connections that are essential to being a successful operation in China.

But what are they doing? Who are they publishing for and how are they working with the Chinese authorities to bring sophisticated legal information exchange and process to this rapidly expanding market that harbours many risks and pitfalls due to the nature of the Chinese state apparatus and physical enormity that is China itself

Last year NYU legal professor Jerome Chen wrote on the East Asia Forum blog an article entitled “The PRC Legal System At Sixty” where he makes no bones about the role of the Communist Party’s desire to control the country’s legal system, processes and decisions:

Despite the importation of Western norms and forms, including constitutional endorsement of the rule of law, human rights and property rights, the Party makes no bones about its airtight control of the judiciary and the legal system generally. Its central political-legal committee and local Party counterparts ‘coordinate’ the work of the courts, the procuracy, the Ministry of Justice, the legal profession, and the regular and secret police.

So at House of Butter we ask ourselves: How do western legal publishing companies work with these strictures to produce information that both satisfies the needs of their client base and the control mechanisms of the Chinese state on a national state and local level?

Cohen concludes his piece by writing

Unfortunately, prospects for immediate significant reforms are dim. Since the 17th Party Congress two years ago, the Party line on law has discouraged most professional progress and called for renewal of the simple ‘mass line’ for judicial affairs that first prevailed in the rugged, rural conditions of the pre-1949 ‘liberated areas’ governed by the Party. Courts are instructed to reemphasize informal mediation of disputes instead of adjudication and, when making decisions, to rely on Party leadership, with secondary consideration also to be given to socio-economic conditions and law.

So what role do or should we say can the publishers play if the power of the written word which as Professor Cohen illustrates plays a secondary role to concepts such as “informal mediation” and “party leadership”?

As good a place to start as any are the company statements on the Lexis and Westlaw websites to see if we can get any hint of how they see themselves in the Chinese legal market

Lexis write on their China home page (please excuse our use of the Google translation tool):

LexisNexis (LexisNexis) entered Hong Kong in 1994, currently in China with Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou offices and employs nearly 100 people. LexisNexis adhering to its usual style, in law and business fields is dedicated to providing our customers the best products and services, and to strive for China to contribute to the development of the law. 

So far, we have the product introduction and innovation, products and related services to achieve a number of landing the Chinese market, customers in major industries, including government, Chinese and foreign enterprises, domestic and international legal clinics in major universities in China. 

After much trawling we found a copy of the original press release sent out by Lexis when they launched in China back in January 2005 where they announce who they were working with to publish Chinese legal materials:

LexisNexis has also announced that it recently entered into exclusive licensing arrangements with the State Information Center (SIC), through its subsidiary Beijing Guoxin Xunjie Information Resources & Develop Technology Co., Ltd>., for content provided under its Chinese legal, tax and regulatory product "chinalaw.net" and Chinalawinfo, for its "lawinfochina" English language content.

Search as we might we can find no online reference to the above organization after the 2005 date.

So it seems from what we can glean: Lexis desires to help China “Strive” to develop law in the country working with the authorities corporations and law firms in order to do so. 

Westlaw are even leaner with their desire to share information and stick to describing the process only. There’s no mention whatsoever of what they hope to achieve in the market on their .cn page.

This is all they have to say:

Westlaw China online legal database is a powerful legal research tool customized for legal professionals. It is provided by Thomson Reuters Legal basing on Westlaw online legal database. 

Our editorial team comprises lawyers and experts with years of experience in legal work. The team has been carefully reviewing and organizing laws and regulations as well as court cases of mainland China in order to provide users with well-processed legal information and value-added data services. 

Containing both a Chinese database and an English database, Westlaw China is designed not only to provide users with accurate and bilingual legal information but also to satisfy customized needs of both Chinese-speaking and English-speaking users. 

Westlaw China's content is updated on daily basis so as to ensure the currency and accuracy of the information we provide to our customers.

[For further “detail” go to http://www.thomsonreuterslegal.com.cn/about_westlaw_china.php]

We’ve also asked around and emailed both organizations to see whether they’d be happy to talk about who, what, where and how in China. As always with our enquiries we’ve been met with deafening silence.

It’s no surprise to us that both these organizations, which in our opinion dislike transparency at the best of times, are not going to share any thought about China’s legal system and how they hope to grow their businesses in partnership with the desires of the Chinese Communist party.

So what about the other English language publishers of legal information operating in the market. Will their online presence give us any indication of how they think?

We’ll start with Kluwer who made a big splash back in August with this announcement:

Wolters Kluwer China and Commercial Press Collaborate to Serve Legal Community in China and Globally

BEIJING–(Marketwire – August 30, 2010) – Wolters Kluwer China yesterday announced the strategic partnership agreement with Commercial Press to be able to better serve its legal customers in China as well as across the globe. The collaboration will bring the quality of legal and regulatory content to a greater height by pushing Chinese content outward and pulling global content into China.

Wolters Kluwer China is a part of Wolters Kluwer, a market-leading global information services company focused on professionals. Commercial Press is China's first print publisher dedicated to the translation and introduction of foreign laws and regulations since the commercialization of the publishing industry.

The agreement was signed today at the 2010 Beijing International Book Fair by Ms. Nancy McKinstry, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Wolters Kluwer, and Ms. Shasha Chang, CEO of Wolters Kluwer China, and Mr. Yu Dianli, President of Commercial Press.

"Wolters Kluwer and Commercial Press each have accumulated a wealth of editorial experience and knowledge, both internationally and locally. Wolters Kluwer's flagship brands in the legal and regulatory markets, such as Aspen Publishers, Kluwer Law International and CCH, are recognized and used by legal professionals globally. Through this partnership, a continuous translation and co- publishing of leading international legal content will take place on an ongoing basis and be delivered in a format that meets our customers' needs best," said Nancy McKinstry.

Through the collaboration, Wolters Kluwer will draw a wealth of global legal and regulatory content into China, translated into Chinese with the help of Commercial Press. This will provide the Chinese professional community with world-class expert information and web-enabled solutions. At the same time, Commercial Press is able to publish Chinese legal and regulatory content in a timely manner through Wolters Kluwer's established global information resource network that is available in both Chinese and English.

"We are very proud to partner with Commercial Press. Their history of over 100 years has made Commercial Press a long-standing, renowned print publisher and a highly recognized institution among legal academia and professionals", said Shasha Chang, CEO of Wolters Kluwer China.

[Full press release at http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Wolters-Kluwer-China-Commercial-Press-Collaborate-Serve-Legal-Community-China-Globally-1310967.htm]

Their press release also goes on to say: 

Wolters Kluwer China recognizes the importance of providing its Chinese professional community with highly relevant, expert information and web-enabled solutions. "The partnership acts as the window for Chinese professionals to connect with our intelligent solutions locally and globally. For tax, accounting and legal, our leading positions in these markets in various regions combined with more meaningful engagement with the community here will further strengthen our commitment to Chinese professionals to drive results and efficiencies for them.

Again no mention of indigenous law instead its all about “results & efficiencies”.

At least Kluwer’s partner, Commercial Press, state in their About Us section:

Today, The Commercial Press thrives as three independent companies located in Hong Kong, Beijing and Taiwan. Because of their common origin and history, these companies frequently work together in long-term, close cooperation. In 1993, in order to better facilitate working hand in hand for the advancement of education and enlightenment and the promotion of Chinese culture.

It’s not much of a statement but it’s a lot more than we’ve heard from anybody else

There’s also the Euromoney Group, one of the oldest players in the business, publishing related legal information about the China market via publications such as Asia Law & China Law & Practice.

Their “About Us” section happily informs the reader that the publication has over 22 years' experience in:

collating, translating and commenting on the law in China, China Law & Practice is the leading legal and risk management resource designed to help you interpret changes on the ground in China. Since launch in 1987, China Law & Practice (CLP) is an indispensable partner for senior executives and in-house legal counsel of many of the largest foreign invested companies, joint ventures and domestic Chinese companies, government organisations and leading law firms to keep abreast of the legal developments in China and their impact to the ways companies do business in China.

Yet again no mention of who the company needs to work with or around in order to garner PRC information, but it is worth pointing out that the oldest player in the legal information market in China decides after almost a quarter of a century only to run freelancers on the mainland and keep their official office in Hong Kong.

Our next stop is Informa Law. After half a dozen fairly infuriating phone calls to various Informa departments in the region we’ve learnt that the company now only operates a sales office out of Singapore these days in order to sell European & US legal information in the region.

A relatively new player, Vantage Asia Publishing Limited, based in Hong Kong, publishes the China Business Law Journal ten times a year; and publisher Kelley Fong is only too happy to state that the reason their head office is based in Hong Kong with a network of freelancers and contributors on the mainland is simply because this means less interference by other parties in the information they choose to publish. A refreshing stance indeed.

It’s also interesting to see the network of individuals that they say they have collected as their editorial board in order to discuss business and commercial law issues in China:

Additional guidance and vision is provided by China Business Law Journal’s editorial board. Members include prominent business leaders, lawyers and academics from a diverse range of China-based and international organizations including the Bank of China, AT&T, Google, TCL, Danone, China Life Insurance, Motorola, Citibank, Jones Lang LaSalle, Standard Chartered, Sony Ericsson and Marriot.

Let's hope that their editorial board does feel free to express opinions that might not be too popular at all times on the mainland. And it looks as though editor in chief at Vantage Asia, Jerome Cohen, is leading by example. He tells us via email tells us that his:

human rights and jurisprudential advocacy and activism are born out of several decides’ experience at the forefront of commercial law in the PRC across all business sectors, from dispute resolution, contentious and non-contentious transactions to capital flows both in-bound and out, IP protection and M&A. It is in this area of law that China and the outside world have interacted ever more intensely these past 30 years.

Cohen adds that interaction between parties has over time built “familiarity and trust on both sides, and greater understanding and appreciation among Chinese legal circles of the benefits society can enjoy as awareness of property and other rights grows.” 

Cohen also adds that he’s been taking advantage of the “unique and well-earned position of trust" he enjoys in China “to air fresh legal alternatives on the use of the death penalty" and much more. Importantly, he believes that he is being listened to. 

Last but not least we come to Legal Studio, who have been operating in China for nigh on 15 years and have offices in Hong Kong, Beijing & Shanghai. They say about themselves on their website:

LegalStudio's leading China legal know-how services uniquely combine a comprehensive China law and case database with extensive bilingual know-how resources. LegalStudio is the only China legal publisher with a focus on know-how: the provision of practical resources (articles, model contracts, drafting notes) for lawyers.

We spoke with Craig Calkins the company’s founder and CEO, who said: 

I think that an article on them [Lexis/West], even if not positive, just gives their China businesses some much needed publicity and is thus not good for us independent publishers. It makes them look pioneering and gutsy to the readers in the West, whereas in reality they were the last two publishers to set up. CCH was the real trailblazer in the 1990's, followed by us.

We also asked Craig to give us an idea what conditions legal publishers have to operate under in the PR. These comments may prove useful to those readers needing to understand how these publishing companies operate in China: "China does seem to draw a distinction between an online database and a printed book. You need to publish in paper copy with a PRC publishing house, those are PRC rules."

We imagine any legal publisher reading this piece will ask why we are singling them out as these topics are applicable to all international companies working in the PRC.

This is true to an extent, but there are a number of issues concerning this industry in particular that we suggest make these questions ever more relevant.

One is the repeated denial of basic human rights to selected individuals and communities, and especially rights based lawyers in 2010, culminating in this months’ decision by the PRC authorities to ensure that Liu Xiaobo is kept under wraps after the announcement of his winning the Nobel prize. 

But there is also the fact that the Chinese authorities felt that they could both officially complain to other governments about the awarding of the prize and the subsequent restrictions on other lawyers in China some of whom have been put under house arrest or have not been allowed to travel either internally or out of the country.

Secondly those publishers who have chosen to work with the government in China do so only in non “political” subjects such as IP, Business, Commercial and Financial. If the PRC government deems an area of law political it appears that some publishers are only to happy to not to have a particular China publishing programme that might affect current or future business activities in the country.

If only we’d seen one press release this year or last from any of the major publishers even vaguely alluding to the fact that they have to work within various strictures and that there is a desire, however minimal, over time to develop a dialogue with China’s authorities to talk about legal issues such as human rights environmental rights issues and a myriad of other social rights concerns, as well as other issues in the PRC, from housing law to dealing with the fallout of local government mismanagement after disasters such as the earthquake in Sichuan.

But no, not a whisper. Maybe it’s time for their worldwide client base to demand just a little more from these publishers so that those law firms operating in China, especially domestic ones, can feel that there is a modicum of support from these publishing companies who say they are helping bring the Rule of Law to a new globalised China through their commercial activities.

We’ll finish up by saying congratulations to Vantage Asia who are at least attempting to create dialogue about rights based law in China as a part of their daily business activities — and to the other independents for working on the ground with freelancers and local firms to create alternative channels of communication that we hope in the future will bring rule of law by stealth. Maybe there are a couple of other publishers out there who might want to step up to the plate as well?

It has occurred to House of Butter that in 2010 there now appears to be a singular lack of imagination at senior management levels at the major legal publishers.

Plenty of the usual tinkering and re-imagining of existing content and products and more of the we’ve bought this and look at the our latest JV with one or other technology based company to help “streamline” content management and flow at law firms. Woop de doo.

HOB wonders if this lack of imagination has its roots in fact that both Lexis and West currently see themselves as “content” database storage and re-distribution organisations rather than employing that remarkably resilient word, Publisher.

Would Henry Butterworth or John B. West and their immediate successors have found a way through the quagmire that is today’s legal information market. Or would their fate also be the constant chase for the next quarter’s figures and a general floundering about hoping that the next big idea in legal publishing will come down from the heavens as a eureka moment lightening strike.

From the periphery it appears that the bolt from the heavens option is the one that most senior management figures at both companies are opting for.

All at once we hear cries of. What about Westlaw Next? What about LN’s integration of Word with their product? What about the technology leaps both companies have made under their ownership by Thompson & Nexis in the last 20 years? What about their understanding that practice management, electronic discovery and much more has been understood and integrated into both companies as saleable product to the existing market?

We don’t doubt that both companies have made the necessary leaps with regard to technology integration, content management and distribution in markets around the world over the past decade and a half.

Yet, for all the big technological changes that have revolutionized the legal information market both revenues and human IP at Wexis have been hit hard by the global slowdown in general and specifically by fierce cost cutting at law firms and other clients.

Remember this: only 18 months ago both companies were recording double digit percentage growth, quarter in and quarter out but look how quickly circumstances have turned everything a full 180 degrees. 

Wexis and other publishers somehow have to combat the current big idea, free legal information for all. Actually, not only do they have to confront it they have to tackle it head on and convince their markets and clients that they have the ideas, desire and capacity for invention to take legal information to the world in the 21^st century.

Google, Lii and others are pushing the concept of free legal content for all but the reality is the information they distribute is designed for the general unwashed or as a back up for law firms or for government departments and tertiary institutions who need desperately to find ways to control spiraling budgets for legal information. As far as we can see these free legal information suppliers are still in the business of distribution and haven’t as yet decided to put their intellectual capital into invention.

This, we suggest, still leaves a lot of maneuvering at the 2 majors as well as the bigger legal information publishers such as Kluwer, Justis, Hein and others. All of them need find ways to consolidate and even build on the current revenues through publishing invention rather other than relying on technology and delivery methods as the never ending profit savior.

One North American colleague has told us that no longer do Lexis & West have “Publishing Directors” rather VPs in “Business Development” and similar titles. He also suggests that there has actually been a conscious decision to denigrate the publisher concept in the corporate structure of Lexis & West. We hasten to add that this philosophy hasn’t permeated all corners of these organizations, Butterworths (UK) still has a "Publishing Operations Director". Did they have to fight to keep a title like that, we hope not.

As HOB sees it, and we readily admit that not everybody will or should see it like us, there needs to be a series of new ideas in the sphere of legal publishing that will keep current legal information consumers spending and encourage new consumers to the table. 

The death knell of the literary publishing market has been sounded repeatedly over the last 30 years yet that industry has managed to reinvent itself almost on an annual basis to grow and become stronger than anyone thought possible at the turn of the century.

HOB won’t be giving away our big ideas. You never know somebody might actually pay us for them some sunny day. 

But ……we would love to suggest that a great step forward for the industry would be to widen its appeal with some clever commissioning for new titles, or content, if you prefer to call it that. It is time to tackle from a legal standpoint the big ideas, problems and issues facing us all as we enter the second decade of the 21^st century. 

Concurrently the industry could or should raise awareness of its important role by creating an equivalent of the Booker Man, Turner or Pulitzer prize thus giving wider credence to the world of law and the legal issues via publishing.

Most of us, have in one way or another at some point in our lives, been touched by the law. We see and hear it daily via drama, documentary and current events on our televisions and radios. We read about it in newspapers and magazines (and yes on our i pads and laptops). Our leaders tell us it is the cornerstone of our democracies yet we don’t garner any of this information from our industry in the same way we now read about history, science, politics and technology amongst a myriad of other subjects. Where is our Richard Dawkins, Simon Scharma or Douglas Copeland ?

Let’s start at the publishers by hiring commissioning editors whose remit isn’t to find a legal academic they don’t have to pay much to write a slim over priced title on securities law in Mozambique or re-arrange yet another database to create a saleable product to existing clients.. Instead let these commissioning editors fly a little and think laterally about what a legal title could mean over the next decade. 

Allow them to hone skills and make mistakes and maybe just maybe in a few years time one of these individuals will stun their CEO with a concept that could change the fortunes of an industry and in the meantime introduce a whole new purchasing readership.

You never know, a publishing state of mind may well save a publishing industry.