Bloomberg Law

Bloomberg Law includes a standard federal and state caselaw archive back to 1789 and 1755, respectively. They developed their own editorial topics and case summaries, as well as, a citator to compete with Keycite and Shepards. They have added dockets, law reviews, news, financial data, regulatory and legislative sources. It offers sophisticated Boolean, natural language and faceted field searching.

Some features include:

Foreign and International Dockets Include UK, Ontario, Canada, Hong Kong, EU, Royal Court of Jersey and the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands.
Dealmaker Provides sample documents to be used as templates or samples of deals which can be used for negotiation.

For decades, the multibillion dollar market for Legal Research has been a cozy club for two. But now financial giant Bloomberg has fully powered up Bloomberg Law, a rival that could at last disrupt the status quo.

Right now, two incumbents, Westlaw and LexisNexis, divvy up the lion’s share of a market that is reportedly worth $8 billion a year.

Bloomberg’s plan to crack the legal duopoly is based on a two-pronged strategy – bundling Legal Research tools with its rich package of corporate data while also offering fixed pricing. By offering an all-you-can eat plan of $450 a month,

It has reportedly hired hundreds of lawyers to compile its database and last year it spent $990 million to acquire BNA, a publisher of legal and regulatory treatises. Bloomberg is also paying to sponsor the prestigious SCOTUSblog, the go-to source for Supreme Court happenings.

BNA Is Included at No Additional Cost

Bloomberg appears to be staying true to the business model and is including acquisitions both big and small in Bloomberg Law at no additional cost. When they bought Business Week, it was fully integrated. Now Bloomberg is telling subscribers that as soon as all of the BNA material including all newsletters,e.g. the pricey “Daily Report for Executives”and all BNA research platforms such as the Intellectual Property Library are converted, all BNA content — including content not previously subscribed to will be available at no additional cost to the Bloomberg Law subscribers.

Legal and Business Information

As clients are demanding that lawyers not only understand the law but also understand their business challenges and related industry trends, Bloomberg’s interweaving of law and business may be the very thing that every partner will want and perhaps need on their desktop n order to thrive as a rainmaker.

It’s $990 Million acquisition of BNA could offer a “value strategy” aimed at CCH and Law 360. Large firms Subscribe to hundreds of specialized newsletters, (covering everything from aviation to zoning). If Bloomberg goes shopping or decides to compete in these specialty areas, this could help firms consolidate the roster of stand-alone products with their attendant raft of specialized headaches including: idiosyncratic licensing, variant publishing formats and password management.

In January 2013 a Tax Practice Center. With this release Bloomberg is leveraging some of the “crown jewels”which it acquired in the purchase of the Bureau of National Affairs.

While Lexis and Westlaw both have developed online tax practice centers, they have had the disadvantage of being behind the “pay wall.”The “pay wall”has always been unworkable for lawyers who literally work inside their codes and regulations all day long.

Bloomberg Law is similar to CCH and RIA in offering a full array of tax practice materials in an unlimited search desktop platform. The Bloomberg Law Tax Practice Center integrates in-depth analysis, commentary, practice tools, news, case law and other primary sources. The “big hook”may be the presence of the well entrenched BNA resources, The Daily Tax Report and the Tax Management Portfolios which have been key adjuncts for even devoted users of CCH or RIA tax products.

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Author: international

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