The Current State and Likely Future of the Commercial Legal Publishing Industry: The Effect of Open Access Innovation on the Industry's Core Market

An estimated 650 law librarians, law professors, government officials, judges and legal information industry representatives attended 15 LAW.GOV workshops held across the country earlier this year. The culmination was the recent release of  LAW.GOV's 10 core principles. See NLJ's Law document transparency project defines its terms. As Fastcase CEO Ed Walters points out in Why .Gov is at the *End* of Law.Gov: Effort Needs Innovators First, Then Government, To Thrive  a wide range of individuals representing diverse interests participated in LAW.GOV workshop sessions. Following up on LLB's On Extending the Outreach for LAW.GOV's Support: The Incubation Process Has Begun, this week we are featuring LAW.GOV. videos of some. [JH]

Outsell's David Curle, a publishing industry analyst, gave the following presentation on the legal publishing industry at the May 21, 2010 Chicago LAW.GOV workshop. After reviewing the market structure of the industry, estimating revenue generated by selling primary legal resources, and the impact the current recession has had on the major companies' core market, namely law firm and corporate instititutional buyers, Curle forecasts that open access innovation  will create new markets outside of this core market and that the products and services created there will push the major legal publishers to provide similar products and services because their core institutional buyers will be demanding them.