Lexis Acquistion of Shepard's Voted Best Merger

In September Jean O'Grady posted a informal survey asking readers to vote for the best and worst mergers in the legal publishing industry and promising to report the results upon its conclusion. Last Friday, she reported the findings on the best mergers. By a hugh margin the acquisition of Shepard's by Lexis in 1993 won. Details including a summary of survey takers comments here.

I too think the Shepard's acquisition was the best merger. Some could argue that Lexis without Shepard's would have made Lexis substantially less competitive than Westlaw in the 1990s. The acquisition is still paying dividends. I, for one, would be very unconfortable about not offering Lexis+Shepards online to our little county law library's on-site and off-site user population. While Key-Cite isn't as bad as it once was, it still isn't the gold standard in legal citators.

O'Grady promises to report the findings on the worst legal publishing mergers this week on Dewey B Strategic. Should be very interesting. [JH]