Are legal publishers being disintermediated?
Gary Rodrigues, a publishing industry consultant and former executive with LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters, asks this morning if Wikipedia can provide free access to the law, what is left for legal publishers WestLaw, LexisNexis, and Wolters Kluwer
. Rodrigues needed to address a complicated issue involving German and Canadian tax law. A lawyer, but without expertise in tax law, Rodrigues approached a highly regarded member of a prominent Toronto law firm.
Rather than saying let me research the issue and get back to you, the lawyer said “Wait a minute, let me check Wikipedia to see what it is has to say.” Wikipedia had a summary of the law that was sufficient to frame the issue and identify the information that would need to be gathered.
Wikipedia, not Westlaw, Lexis or Wolters Kluwer, exclaims Rodrigues.
My astonishment, of course, was based on his decision to resort to Wikipedia rather than any of the major online services that specialize in offering global tax information. More surprising was that Wikipedia gave him almost instantaneous free access to German tax law. Based on my experience in legal publishing, my assumption was that he would resort to one of the major online services, either Wolters Kluwer (a.k.a CCH), Westlaw or LexisNexis. Major investments have been made in acquiring legal publishing businesses from around the world and in building global platforms to provide access to legal information to meet this very need. In this case the investment was all for nothing. Frankly, the thought of using Wikipedia for a quick overview of the law of Germany or anywhere else would never even have crossed my mind. As it turned out, Wikipedia proved to be reliable. When the file was reviewed by the German tax lawyer, he confirmed its accuracy
Are we seeing the disintermediation of major legal publishers?
The Internet has brought disintermediation to various industries. Real estate, book publishing and sales, electronics sales, newspapers, software, and music, among others.
Disintermediation in legal publishing means the removal of the intermediaries in the supply chain. Instead of going through traditional distribution channels for the law, which had some type of intermediate (legal publisher), a customer (the lawyer) may now deal with the source through the Internet.
The source here being the lawyers in the know. Traditionally, lawyers, practicing or academics, wrote and edited for legal publishers or vetted primary law for the publishers. With the Internet, lawyers can publish directly to the net via blogs or collaboratively share legal information on Wikipedia.
What’s the ongoing incentive for lawyers to pay large subscription fees to legal publishers when they’ll be able to access legal research in open channels via the Internet?
We’re not there yet, but neither were the music, newspaper, or book publishing industries just 10 years ago?