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Thomson Optimistic – but Shedding Jobs in Eagan and Rochester

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Ever since Thomson took over the Lawyers’ Co-operative Publishing Company in Rochester and acquired West Publishing in Eagan and St. Paul, there’s been apprehension about what the new owners might do to high-paying editorial jobs in both towns. If Indian outsourcing is affecting legal information, could it also affect the production and processing of legal information?

At the same time that Toronto’s Globe and Mail was printing an upbeat story about silver linings in economic clouds, the local papers in Rochester and Eagan were reporting about seventy editorial and production jobs that are heading east to India and the Philippines. Thomson expects to hire 300 to 500 employees in India and the Philippines.

Thomson Reuters has stated that it has no plans to close the Rochester, Cleveland and Eagan, Minn., offices.

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  1. Simon Chester
    January 12th, 2009 at 5:07 pm

    Some interesting comments on this issue in yesterday’s Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:

    A new presidential administration in Washington, D.C., will likely mean new federal priorities and administrative rules, resulting in all sorts of new case law that will need analysis, meaning all sorts of new legal guides will be needed, said Jean E. Maess, site executive for the Rochester offices of Thomson Reuters.

    The recession could help the legal segment.

    According to Thomson Reuters, the global financial crisis could lead to increases in work in some legal areas such as litigation, bankruptcies, restructurings and regulation.

    Thomson Reuters announced in November that it would send some of the work being done in Rochester, such as loading data into databases and keying in hard copy content into digital form, to India and the Philippines.

    Work directly related to intellectual content will not be sent overseas, Maess said.

    The company is in the midst of trying to cut its work force through voluntary buyouts even as it expands its global team to try to offer more legal products in other countries, Maess said.

    “Five years from now, I don’t know what we’ll look like,” Maess said.