Today legal publisher Fastcase is announcing the acquisition of Law Street Media legal news platform. Fastcase plans to work with founder John A. Jenkins, the former President and Publisher of CQ Press, and a team of reporters to evolve the online news platform into an enhanced daily news and analytics hub. When the site is relaunched in 2019, the retooled platform will highlight national and state docket litigation, regulatory developments, state bar news, and offer analytics and insights powered by Fastcase’s growing suite of legal information products, such as Docket Alarm and Fastcase 7.

In recent blogs I have expressed concern about the lack of competition to LexisNexis dominance of the legal news market through acquisition (Law360, Mlex, Knowledge Mosaic) and alliance ( American Lawyer Media, Wall Street Journal.) Recently Bloomberg Law announced a realignment of their news staff and product lines – customers are still waiting to see what  this means. Lexblog recently announced that they are expanding their blog network to compete in the legal news space. So the Fastcase strategy to focus on news and analytics is a welcome sign that the market for legal news is becoming healthier and offering law firms more options for gaining legal news insights for  the practice and business of law.

The press release describes how Fastcase leaders Ed Walters and Phil Rosenthal plan to evolve their news and analytics offerings.

“Legal research isn’t just about logging into an online service and running searches,” said Fastcase CEO Ed Walters. “It’s also about taking an active interest in developments that clients care about. Legal news means covering the stories behind new cases filed, analytics, new judicial opinions, passed bills, and rulemaking. Lawyers have to stay as informed as their clients, and our partnership with Law Street Media will be an important source of must-have information about the fast-changing practice of law.”

For Law Street Media, Fastcase offers exposure to an active and engaged group of readers.  More than 900,000 lawyers have a subscription to Fastcase and its Docket Alarm analytics platform.

“This transaction represents a full realization of our vision,” said Jenkins, Law Street Media’s founder.  “I am gratified that Law Street will continue as a Fastcase enterprise.  It’s an affirmation of the ground-breaking work done by our team. But the real winners are the millions who trusted us to be their authoritative legal news source.  With the support of Fastcase, Law Street will continue to serve them.”

Fastcase co-founder and President Phil Rosenthal sees the benefit in having state bar partners play an essential role in the news efforts: “What better way to introduce law students to their local state bar and the invaluable insights and connections these bars offer, than to see state bar associations as active contributors providing local expertise in our news feeds?”

Fastcase will connect the news platform to its Docket Alarm and Fastcase 7 platform, build out its reporter team, and partner with its state bar partners to showcase their local expertise.  “Lawyers already get their news from Fastcase’s research alerts, and Docket Alarm is itself named after its alerting service. We can’t wait to explore the legal news potential from telling these stories in Law Street Media,” said Walters.

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About Fastcase
As the smarter alternative for legal research, Fastcase democratizes the law, making it more accessible to more people. Using patented software that combines the best of legal research with the best of Web search, Fastcase helps busy users sift through the clutter, ranking the best cases first and enabling the re-sorting of results to find answers fast. Founded in 1999, Fastcase has more than 900,000 subscribers from around the world. Fastcase is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, follow Fastcase on Twitter at @Fastcase, or visit www.fastcase.com.

About Law Street Media
Law Street Media is a free web-based platform covering law and public policy. It was founded as a way to provide a single essential resource to law students and young professionals in the rapidly evolving legal industry. Law Street’s Founder and CEO is journalist and author John A. Jenkins, formerly President and Publisher of CQ Press. Law Street Media served millions of online visitors and located its editorial office in Washington D.C., with business operations in New York City. For more information about Law Street Media, visit LawStreetMedia.com and follow on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.