Sean Hocking

This (gently self-promotional) letter from Sean Hocking, received yesterday:

Dear Slaw,

I was doing some googling over the weekend and noticed your january 06 post about myself and my blog House of Butter.

Just FYI

House of Butter was created as a blog in early 2002 after I resigned from the Australian arm of Lexis Nexis. The House of Butter title is a reference to Butterworths purchased by Lexis Nexis and then dismantled by it’s US parent I think much to the detriment of the legal publishing industry as a whole and especially any Butterworths client.

I see LN these days as a House of Butter rather than a house of cards. We know that we can’t blow it down and watch it collapse like a house of cards .. Rather we blow hard and bits will slowly melt away!

The reason for starting the blog was to give a not always balanced but at least an independent view of what is happening and has happened to the legal publishing industry over the past decade as it becomes increasingly centralised by large corporations who see legal information as just another product to be distributed globally. HOB aims to become the publication of record with regard to developments in the legal publishing industry. As far as I am aware HOB is still the only blog that comes to table with this approach and a global viewpoint. We hope over the next year to develop the publication so that it can pay more attention to the likes of Westlaw & Lexis Nexis and their strategies in emerging markets especially India & China.

Sean Hocking / Quick CV

1988-89 Assistant Law Book Company Australia Bookshop
1990-91 PR Dept Chatto & Windus London
1991-96 Manager Point of Law Bookshop Sydney
1996-99 International Sales Manager Legalease Publications London
1999-2000 Founder & principal of Excata.com Australia’s 1st Independent legal news, Information and Publications Sales Portal
2000 Excata Purchased by Lexis Nexis Australia – Sean Hocking joins LN as Alliance Manager for new LN Australia news & product web interface
2001 Resigns Lexis Nexis
2002 Founds Practice Source.com with partner John Taylor, Launches LLN (Law Librarians News) a fortnightly pdf magazine for Law Librarians
worldwide and starts publishing House of Butter
2006 Still here!

I’ve attached the last issue of LLN for you to have a quick look.

If you have any questions

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch

Best Wishes

Sean Hocking
Editor
Law Librarians News
http://www.practicesource.com

For those who may be interested, the link to the [pdf] issue of the Law Librarian News referred to is here.