Today Fastcase is announcing their intention to relaunch Law Street Media  at the end of 2019. Toward that end they have announced the creation of an advisory board. (Disclosure: I will be a member of that board.) For more than a decade LexisNexis has dominated the legal news market. Nexis was always a strong news product then they achieved a near monopoly through acquisitions and alliances (Law360, ALM, Wall Street Journal, MLex, Newsdesk). The legal market could clearly benefit from having more legal news options. Bloomberg Law and Wolters Kluwer Legal and Regulatory have recently signaled their intent to enhance their legal news offerings.

“The legal information news industry has evolved from case decisions to docket alerts, decisions and analytics,” said Fastcase Chief Operating Officer Steve Errick. “Law Street Media will be must-have legal news that directly helps law firms to drive new business across emerging industry practice groups.

News Powered by Analytics. according to the press release “Law Street Media will connect the news platform to its Docket Alarm and Fastcase legal research platform, build out its reporter team, and work with its state bar partners to showcase their local expertise. Fastcase founder Ed Walters, himself a former journalist, has been working to re-tool the Law Street Media platform and business model.”

The inaugural Law Street Media advisory board includes some legal news disruptors and  pioneers such as Bob Ambrogi of LawSites, David Lat, Founder of Above the Law, and Kevin O’Keefe, Founder, LexBlog.

Here is the Full  Roster of the Inaugural Law Street Media Board

  • John Jenkins, Founder, Law Street Media
    Bob Ambrogi, LexBlog and LawSites
    Jean O’Grady, Founder, Dewey B. Strategic
    Kevin O’Keefe, Founder, LexBlog
    David Lat, Founder, Above the Law
    Michael Sander, Founder, Docket Alarm
    Kevin Vermeulen, Partner and COO, Good2bSocial
    Ed Walters, CEO, Fastcase

Law Street Media will connect the news platform to its Docket Alarm and Fastcase legal research platform, build out its reporter team, and work with its state bar partners to showcase their local expertise. Fastcase founder Ed Walters, himself a former journalist, has been working to re-tool the Law Street Media platform and business model.

Fastcase Announces Law Street Media Q4 Re-Launch, News Leader and Inaugural Advisory Board
“News Leads to Business” Platform to Drive Client Development and Industry Alerts

Washington, DC (July 11, 2019) – Legal publisher Fastcase has announced its plans for the relaunch of Law Street Media in the fourth quarter of 2019, as well as its leadership team and inaugural advisory board. The company is developing the new platform around state and federal litigation news and alerting services tied to emerging industries. News content will be free, while additional alerting and tracking tools will be available by subscription for subscribers of Fastcase or Docket Alarm.

“The legal information news industry has evolved from case decisions to docket alerts, decisions and analytics,” said Fastcase Chief Operating Officer Steve Errick. “Law Street Media will be must-have legal news that directly helps law firms to drive new business across emerging industry practice groups.”

Law Street Media will relaunch later this year under the leadership of former Docket Alarm Product Manager David Nayer, a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center and former Editor-in-Chief of the Georgetown Law Weekly newspaper. David’s background and training in docket analytics puts him in a unique position to build out the vision behind Law Street.

“There are so many fantastic general news services in the market today. Our vision for Law Street is focused: legal news that can help law firms get business,” Nayer said. “We want to deliver news that is not only engaging but goes beyond the story to help attorneys expand their business. With Docket Alarm, firms can immediately track clients of interest to them, and Law Street will supplement case tracking with news content targeted toward their particular industry or practice area,” he added. “News may be a commodity, but in law firms, finding out news about a client first is everything.”

Joining in the relaunch of Law Street Media is a board of advisers to help ensure Law Street Media meets its mission of “news leads to business” by including industry and segment experts who understand the value of news and alerts in driving business.

Inaugural Law Street Media Board

John Jenkins, Founder, Law Street Media
Bob Ambrogi, LexBlog and LawSites
Jean O’Grady, Founder, Dewey B. Strategic
Kevin O’Keefe, Founder, LexBlog
David Lat, Founder, Above the Law
Michael Sander, Founder, Docket Alarm
Kevin Vermeulen, Partner and COO, Good2bSocial
Ed Walters, CEO, Fastcase

Law Street Media will connect the news platform to its Docket Alarm and Fastcase legal research platform, build out its reporter team, and work with its state bar partners to showcase their local expertise. Fastcase founder Ed Walters, himself a former journalist, has been working to re-tool the Law Street Media platform and business model.

“Traditional news reporting has been in retreat for years,” Walters said, “and Fastcase prizes itself in running against the tide. When the world overcorrects, we see market opportunities. The key is to create a new business model that supports sustainable legal journalism in the 21st Century. The expertise of our advisory board gives me great confidence that we can chart a new course.”

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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.