Simba Information's Global Legal Publishing 2016-2020: Law Books No Longer King; Online Databases Set Pace

News provided by

Mar 15, 2016, 09:13 ET

STAMFORD, Conn., March 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Yale University's law library holds a law text printed by Wendelin of Speyer—a first edition of Lodovico Pontano's Singularia utriusque iuris that rolled off a Venice press in 1471. It was a good 545 year run, but law books now take a back seat to databases as the top selling activity in legal publishing.

Led by Thomson Reuters' Westlaw and LexisNexis, databases have been at the core of the legal information market's growth since the mid 1970s, but in terms of total revenue, had never surpassed law books. Databases accounted for close to 37% of the legal publishing market in 2015, according to Global Legal Publishing 2016-2020, the latest research report from Simba Information.

Law book sales have been falling, and the relatively small law e-book segment is not large enough to overcome the print sales decline. Simba estimates that legal book revenue fell 7.6% in 2015 alone.

E-books were the fastest growing publishing activity tracked by Simba with underlying sales increasing 8% in 2015, but the base of sales is still quite small.

Tools and solutions are the second fastest growing legal publishing activity tracked by Simba, but with a market estimate inching towards $3 billion, the category is having a much larger impact on the total performance in legal publishing.

The evolving needs of law customers have pushed them to leverage technology and software solutions, which has created new opportunities for non-research oriented legal solutions businesses. As a result, law publishers have worked to develop a whole host of case management and practice management products.

Despite challenges in print publishing, Simba's report found that the long-term growth drivers for the legal services industry are still in place, and the legal information market will follow its prospects. There is consistent growth in legislation, regulation, judicial decisions and complexity. The cost and volume of litigation continues to rise as does the value and volume of commercial transactions.

The newly released Simba report provides an overview and financial outlook for the global legal and business publishing markets based on specific research and analysis of the leading competitors in the markets and market performance in six content delivery categories: databases, books, tools and solutions, directories, journals and looseleafs. For the first time, Simba has separated those activities into print and digital segments.

This research was conducted in conjunction with a larger study of the overall market for professional publishing, including scientific, technical and medical (STM) publishing, the results of which were published in the associated reports Global Scientific Publishing 2015-2019, Global Medical Publishing 2015-2019 as well as the upcoming Global Social Science & Humanities Publishing 2016-2020 and Open Access Journal Publishing 2016-2020.

The report also includes detailed profiles of leading publishers in the legal and business segments, such as LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters West, Wolters Kluwer, Editions Lefebvre-Sarrut, Bloomberg BNA, Shin-Nippon Hoki Shupppan, Haufe Group, C.H. Beck, ALM and Oxford University Press.

Simba Information is widely recognized as the leading authority for market intelligence in the media and publishing industry. Simba's extensive information network delivers top quality, independent perspective on the people, events and alliances shaping the media and information industry. Simba publishes newsletters and research reports that provide key decision-makers at more than 15,000 client companies around the globe with timely news, analysis, exclusive statistics and proprietary industry forecasts. For more information, please visit www.simbainformation.com or call 888-29-SIMBA.

About Simba Information
Simba Information is widely recognized as the leading authority for market intelligence in the media and publishing industry. Simba's extensive information network delivers top quality, independent perspective on the people, events and alliances shaping the media and information industry. Simba publishes newsletters and research reports that provide key decision-makers at more than 15,000 client companies around the globe with timely news, analysis, exclusive statistics and proprietary industry forecasts. For more information, please visit http://www.simbainformation.com.

Contact:
Dan Strempel
Simba Information
203-325-8193 ext. 7149
[email protected]

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150831/262419LOGO

SOURCE Simba Information