Philly 2011 Sponsorship Update: Welcome Thomson Reuters for Coming to the No-Limit Texas Hold 'em Table with a Chip Count Between "$5,000 to $24,999"

In case you haven't noticed and I didn't until I finally got up the "courage" to register for Philly 2011: Cream Cheese, Cheesesteak or Karaoke a couple of days before the early bird registration fee offer expired (oh, by the way, there appears to still be plenty of rooms available at the AALL hotels), ... drum roll, please ... Thomson Reuters is now officially recognized as a Philly 2011 sponsor. Image right, click to enlarge.

In a February 2011 LLB post, I mentioned that Thomson Reuters was not a listed sponsor for the Company's largest US institutional buyer group's annual meeting -- ah, that would be us -- while observing that:

My first thought is AALL's web staff simply hasn't updated the page with a TR Legal banner. Considering the timeliness of AALL website updating, this is a plausible explanation.

On a March 22 LLB post, Perhaps "We" Just Don't Matter in Some Major Legal Vendors' Strategic and Marketing Plans Anymore, it was noted that TR was still not a listed sponsor for Philly 2011 but was a "gold sponsor" for the ABA TechShow 2011. The post's title says all that needs to be said about that.

There are number of reasonable explanations for TR Legal's banner now appearing on AALL's annual meeting webpage, such as:

• AALL folks are not exactly know for paying attention to details. So perhaps TR had to remind them of that the Thomson Reuters IP Solutions' contribution should be counted;
• Perhaps TR scrapped up a few extra pennies (ah, from Thomson Reuters IP Solutions?); and
• Then there is always my "first thought," namely, AALL doesn't have a great track record for timely website updates.

Bottom Line. TR is a "Bronze" sponsor for Cream Cheese, Cheesesteak or Karaoke this year and "earned" that status by contributing between $5,000 to $24,999. Golly gee, with TRI's  market cap of over $31B, compared to Reed Elsevier's $9.5B and Wolter Kluwer's $4.5B, perhaps this year's rumor mill will be asking "is one of the fellow 'Bronze' sponsors, Fastcase or Hein for example, buying Thomson Reuters?' 

Remember, last year TR was a "Silver" sponsor for contributing between $25,000 to $74,999. Only BNA, LexisNexis and Wolters Kluwer Law & Business earned "Gold" Sponsorship status by contributed $75,000 or more this and last year. Kudos to all three.

Like yesterday's post, "Sign up for WestlawNext now because Westlaw is going to disappear:" Isolated Pitch or New Sales Tactic?, I don't know why I keep associating TR Legal with clips from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels but I do. I wonder if the brain trust on the sixth floor is required to watch the movie every morning before "getting down to business."

"If it is a matter of money ... you must pay the fee to me." -- Dr. Emil Shuffhausen.

But I digress... .

The really big question -- West party?

MIA at the AALL Sponsors No-Limit Texas Hold'em Table. Bloomberg Law. While Texas Hold'em has an element of luck ("risk"), BLaw is still shooting craps. But has plenty of cash to call for more chips. Here's some unsolicited advice for BLaw -- steal some real poker talent from any/all of the "Gold" sponsors. Hell, there are even some sales folks from a certain "Bronze" sponsor who are ready to abandon the RMS Titanic.

For gambling on the future of online legal resources, see one of last year's pre-annual AALL meeting posts, Playing No-Limit Texas Hold 'em with TR Legal and Lexis for Licensing Online Legal Resources. [JH]