Not really news to you and me, but nevertheless, an interesting little snippet in the UK Times…
Who write:
Legal publishers suffer as law firms cut library budget by 12%
As law firms look to drastically slash their cost base, no expenditure is safe. And the pain of the cutbacks is flowing through to companies that depend on them.
The Guardian’s markets blog, citing analysts reports, says that Reed Elsevier, which owns Lexis Nexis, is having a particularly tough time. One broker who estimates the group generates 30 per cent of its operating profit from legal publishing is quoted as saying:
Our quarterly survey of large law firms’ librarians shows a marked worsening in expectations: the information budget is now expected to drop by 12% in 2009. Reed Elsevier will lose market share, based on the survey as about half of the respondents consider Reed Elsevier’s products poor value for money, and a third of respondents indicated that they would cut Reed Elsevier’s products first if they needed to achieve cost savings.
Q2 figures from al the legal publishers bar West seem to confirm this so we aren’t particularly surprised
