On the surface, the Fastcase acquisition of legal news site Law Street, reported here yesterday, may seem puzzling, given that the site has been dormant for more than a year. But Ed Walters, Fastcase CEO, says there were good reasons for the acquisition. Reports, Law Sites Blog
Here’s the intro to the interview
Speaking by phone last night, Walters said that expanding into legal news is consistent with Fastcase’s ongoing mission to become as robust a legal research platform as LexisNexis and Westlaw.
“We’re knocking the legs out from under the chair of things people get LexisNexis for,” he said. “Legal news is definitely one of them.”
LexisNexis’s offerings of legal news include Law360, all of the ALM news content, legislative coverage from State Net, and litigation coverage from Mealey’s.
As I have reported here several times before, this mission to compete against LexisNexis and Westlaw has driven Fastcase to build out its library of secondary content such as treatises and practice guides, acquiring Loislaw in 2015, bringing on former LexisNexis VP Steve Errick to develop new editorial products, adding blog posts and commentary from the LexBlog network, launching a legal publishing arm, and partnering with Wolters Kluwer to offer many of its materials.
Meanwhile, Fastcase also acquired Docket Alarm, the docket tracking and analytics company. Just last week, Fastcase announced that it will become a member benefit for the 60,000-member California Lawyers Association, reportedly bringing its total user base to some 900,000 lawyers.
Read on at https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2018/10/fastcase-ceo-explains-acquired-dormant-legal-news-site.html
