Earlier this
week readers were introduced to a whole new Law.com website. It is clean,
contemporary, graphic and well… glossy. In January ALM rolled out 18 redesigned
websites for its regional and national publications. ALM’s content has always
outshined it’s technology and finally they seem to have developed a slick new
“eye-candy” platform which enhances the content and makes it more accessible.
 
 

One major
content change is the pivot away from a jurisdictional emphasis to a
substantive practice focus. Content from the regional and local jurisdictional
publications will be selected by the editorial team for inclusion on the new
platform. For the first time content from all the ALM resources are brought  together in a single platform– including selected
content from the more exotic “Legal Intelligence” and “Rival Edge” platforms.
 

Contributor
Network – a la Huffington Post

ALM is
developing a new Huffington Post type stable of commentators with its
contributor network. So far they have about 160 contributors including practitioners
and law professors who will write articles commenting on important issues in their area of expertise.

 The Layout  The top navigation bar provides access to the main content sections:

Practice The launch includes 5 topical practice
sections, Intellectual Property, Corporate and Securities, Labor and
Employment, Appellate, Class Actions and Product Liability will include content curated by ALM
editors. Each area will include 8 to 10 stories a day..

 Industry  This
section will focus on stories involving law firm management, finance, major
cases, law schools. lateral moves, who’s getting what clients…. This also includes
my favorite section here is called “The Hot Seat”  which provides a daily dose of lawyers
behaving badly.

Insights – Will expose data and provide
graphics from the ALM Legal Intelligence  reports and surveys  and from the  Rival Edge product.  They will not provide the full reports but
will selectively expose data an summaries of reports which is a terrific cross
selling strategy  highlighting the lesser
known legal intelligence products.

Resources – Includes links to other ALM
resources such as Rival Edge, Minority Law Report, CLE center which require
separate subscriptions. The Law.com legal dictionary is free so I tried it.
Today’s headline grabbing word “upskirting” had not yet made it into the
dictionary.

There’s Also an App. There is also a new Law.com App which
is available in iTunes store. The app scales the content to any sized device
and makes downloaded documents available for reading offline.

 New Subscription
Models

ALM is offering 30-day free trials to the site and three
subscription packages (paid annually):

Basic: Two
practice areas or digital access to two publications for $49.99 per month.

Plus: Three
practice areas or digital access to three publications for $79.99 per month.

Elite:
All-access subscription for every practice area and digital access to all
publications for $99.99 per month

The large law firm pricing model has not yet been
determined.

What’s Next? Natalie Gorman the Editor in Chief expects
the platform to continue to evolve.  “We’re very excited about the new site. We’re
also eager to improve and expand what we offer through it. We’ll definitely be
growing the Contributor Network, we will add new practice areas, we will have
new columnists on the site, and we’ve got a number of new features that we’ll
debut over the course of the coming year, some of which are already in development.
We intend for the site to evolve rapidly and frequently

 My two cents

.How about “Sector”
coverage?
I agree with the new focus on substantive practice issues, ALM should
consider expanding to sector coverage since firms have recently started to
focus on business sector expertise.

 Law Journal
Press
– Please tell me that the Law Journal Press Treatise collection is in
the queue  to get a dramatic modern tech
makeover like Law.com!