Jordan Furlong, who edits the Canadian Lawyers Weekly, posts on Slaw about how blogs and RSS feeds will democratise Legal Publishing in the 21st Century:

Legal publishers need to understand that the number of competitors [in legal news publishing] is not going to shrink – it’s going to multiply tenfold. And these competitors won’t have overhead, distribution, payroll or marketing costs to deal with – they’ll write when they want to, promote themselves by word of mouth, sell as much focused advertising as they like, and establish themselves as individual brand-name forces. … blogs are going to create thousands of expert media outlets with a total staff complement of one. It’s already started.

What does this have to with you, the 21st-century lawyer? Two things. First, the day is soon coming when you won’t have to accept whatever the legal publishers decide you should know about. You can order tailored, in-depth legal news delivered to your desktop, be it through RSS feeds from the local courthouse, Yahoo! legal newsgroup postings, or a free e-newsletter from a sole practitioner …

Second, you should take the opportunity right now to become one of those publishers. … All you need is excellent knowledge of your subject area, a real interest in talking about it, and a ten-minute introduction to blogging.

100 per cent agreed on that.

In the comments section of the post Jordan is less sure about the effects on online legal information publishing:

I keep wondering myself when the online providers like QL/Lexis and Carswell/Westlaw will be affected by the democratization of legal information on the Internet. I get the sense CANLII [in the UK, read BAILII] has taken some of the market share (I’d be interested in knowing how much), and full RSS update capacity in every court would take some more, I imagine.

But until someone like Google creates an advertising-based free-access legal research functionality – which seems plausible, at least – the online providers should continue to do alright.

I agree the incumbents are not going to wither any time soon, but the freeing up of legal information (through BAILII, the Statute Law Database, HMCS and the public sector in general) will begin to have significant impact when the potential for leveraging and adding value to that information is better understood. At present LexisNexis and Westlaw win and retain business not just because they provide comprehensive access to up-to-date law, but because of their valuable added commentary and other gizmos. Marry the increasing amount of independent commentary from the web with the free comprehensive and up-to-date source materials and they will start to hurt. It’s not rocket science.