LexisNexis Legal & Professional provides legal, tax, regulatory and news & business information and analysis to legal, corporate, government, accounting and academic markets
LexisNexis Legal & Professional is a world leading provider of content and information solutions for legal and other corporate markets. Serving customers in more than 100 countries, LexisNexis provides resources and services that inform decisions and increase productivity.
Total revenues for the year ended 31 December 2010 were £1,691m. LexisNexis Legal & Professional is headquartered in New York and has principal operations in Ohio and New Jersey in the United States, in London and Paris in Europe, Canada, and in several other countries in Africa and Asia Pacific. It has 10,300 employees worldwide.
LexisNexis Legal & Professional is organised through market facing businesses, the most significant of which are Research & Litigation Solutions and Marketing & Business Solutions in the US and LexisNexis Europe, Middle East, Africa & Australasia and LexisNexis Asia (together reported as International) outside the US. These are supported by global shared services organisations providing platform and product development, operational and distribution services, and other support functions.
LexisNexis is a leading provider of legal and business information and analysis to law firms, corporations and government throughout the US. Electronic information solutions and innovative workflow tools developed through close collaboration with customers, help law firms and other legal and business professionals make better informed decisions in the practice of law and in managing their businesses.
In Research & Litigation solutions, the flagship product for legal research is Lexis.com, which provides federal and state statutes and case law, together with analysis and expert commentaries from sources such as Matthew Bender and Michie and the leading citation service Shepard’s, which advises on the continuing relevance of case law precedents. Through its suite of litigation services, LexisNexis additionally provides lawyers with tools for electronic discovery, evidence management, case analysis, court docket tracking, e-filing, expert witness identification and legal document preparation. LexisNexis also partners with law schools to provide services to students as part of their training. In October 2010, LexisNexis launched Lexis Advance for Solos, which is a legal research tool built specifically for the US solo attorney market and is the first product to be launched on the new LexisNexis research platform. Both the product and the platform are version 1.0 and over the next few years LexisNexis will be introducing products of increasing sophistication and depth for specific customer segments and to perform specific functions across the legal markets. Earlier in the year, LexisNexis introduced Lexis for Microsoft Office, which enables lawyers to conduct their Lexis searches within Microsoft applications such as Word and Outlook. Other product introductions included LexisNexis Verdict & Settlement Analyzer, which provides data and analytics on previous settlements.
In the business of law, Marketing & Business solutions provides law firms with practice management solutions, including time and billing systems, case management, cost recovery and document management services. LexisNexis assists law firms in their client development through Lawyers.com, showcasing the qualifications and credentials of more than one million lawyers and law firms in the US and internationally, and providing law firms with website development, search engine optimisation and other web marketing services.
LexisNexis also provides its legal and information services to US government, corporate and academic customers, including news and business information and public records. In addition to research and litigation services, capabilities for these customers include specialist products for corporate counsel focused on regulatory compliance, intellectual property management, and management of external counsel.
In International markets outside the United States, LexisNexis serves legal, corporate, government and academic markets in Europe, Canada, Africa and Asia Pacific with local and international legal, tax, regulatory and business information. The most significant businesses are in the UK, France, Australia and Canada.
LexisNexis is focused across all its geographies on leveraging best in class content and its market leading international online product platform to deliver innovative electronic information services and workflow tools to help legal and business professionals make better informed decisions more efficiently. Penetration of online information services is growing and electronic revenues now account for over 50% of LexisNexis total revenues outside the US.
In the UK, LexisNexis is a leading legal information provider in its market. It delivers a wide array of content and services, comprising an unrivalled collection of primary and secondary legislation, case law, expert commentary, and forms and precedents. Its extensive portfolio includes Halsbury’s Laws of England, Simon’s Taxes and Butterworths Company Law Service delivered through the UK’s flagship online product LexisLibrary and in print. Other electronic products include Lexis Legal Intelligence, a resource on legal practice for lawyers, and media monitoring and reputation management tools for the corporate market such as the NexisDirect research tool. Additionally, LexisNexis provides law firms with practice management solutions.
In 2010, LexisNexis continued to build its UK legal practical guidance service LexisPSL, and now has ten practice areas including company commercial, dispute resolution and employment. LexisPSL provides practical guidance on the application of law to complement and integrate with LexisNexis authoritative legal content and commentaries and legal forms and precedents.
In France, LexisNexis is a provider of information to lawyers, notaries and courts with JurisClasseur and La Semaine Juridique being the principal publications, delivered through lexisnexis.fr and in print. These content sources are, as in the UK, being combined with new content and innovative workflow tools to develop practical guidance and practice management solutions. During 2010, LexisNexis divested its legal publishing business in Germany as the investment required to build profitable scale was not considered to have adequate prospective returns. The news and business activities in Germany were retained.
Market Opportunities
Longer term growth in legal and regulatory markets worldwide is driven by increasing levels of legislation, regulation, regulatory complexity and litigation, and an increasing number of lawyers. Additional market opportunities are presented by the increasing demand for online information solutions and practice management tools that improve the quality and productivity of research, deliver better legal outcomes, and improve business performance. Notwithstanding this, legal activity and legal information markets are also influenced by economic conditions and corporate activity, as has been seen most recently with the dampening impact on demand of the recent global recession and the somewhat subdued environment that has followed in North America and in Europe.
Strategic Priorities
LexisNexis Legal & Professional’s strategic goal is to enable better legal outcomes and be the leading provider of productivity enhancing information and information-based workflow solutions in its markets. To achieve this LexisNexis is focused on: building world class content; developing next generation product platforms, tools and infrastructure to deliver best-in-class outcomes for legal and business professionals with greater speed and efficiency; building client development and practice management tools enabling customers to be more successful in their markets; international expansion and growth of online products and solutions; increasing LexisNexis’ presence in emerging markets; and improving operational efficiency.
In the US, the focus is on the continuing development of the next generation of legal research and practice solutions and a major upgrade in operations infrastructure and customer service and support platforms to provide an integrated and superior customer experience across US legal research, litigation services, practice management and client development. Progressive product introductions over the next few years will combine advanced technology with enriched content and sophisticated analytics and applications to enable LexisNexis’ customers to make better legal decisions and drive better outcomes for their organisations and clients. A further priority is to complete the transformation of the client development business from a legal directory business into a web marketing services company.
Outside the US, LexisNexis is focused on growing online services and developing further high quality actionable content and workflow tools, including the development of practical guidance and practice management applications. Additionally, LexisNexis is focusing on the expansion of its activities in emerging markets.
Distribution Channels and Competition
LexisNexis Legal & Professional products and services are generally sold directly to law firms and to corporate, government and academic customers on a paid subscription basis, with subscriptions with law firms often under multi year contracts.
Principal competitors for LexisNexis in US legal markets are West (Thomson Reuters), CCH (Wolters Kluwer) and BNA, and Bloomberg and Factiva (News Corporation) in news and business information. Competitors in litigation solutions also include software companies. Major international competitors include Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer and Factiva.
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