Bloomberg Launches Big Law Business Site

Some exciting news over the last week in the legal media world.

Bloomberg BNA launched a new free site named Big Law Business focused on AmLaw 200 firms and the business of law.

Pleasingly, there’s a specific bucket on the site for us involved in law firm marketing, communications, and business development.

Content is broad ranging and covers news, features, thought pieces, and analysis, plus a social/community element, which enables outside contributors to add articles alongside the regular Bloomberg staff.

Already, a number of law firm PR execs have weighed in to the online debates.

Bloomberg has clearly upped its game in the BigLaw sphere.

In 2013, Bloomberg Law was merged into the company’s national affairs team, following Bloomberg’s billion dollar 2011 acquisition of the Bureau of National Affairs, which covers regulatory news.

A lot of staff left at the time, including video guru Lee Pacchia, who took the Charlie Rose-style concept to his own Mimesis platform, and Bloomberg seemed to go off the boil as a place to hear about large law firm news.

Now it’s back with a vengeance

To lead the charge, Bloomberg hired Casey Sullivan, formerly of Reuters, as editorial director, plus producer Josh Block, and other staff.

Below is a 2014 interview between Pacchia and Sullivan.

Some good further commentary and analysis at the Dewey B Strategic blog, who wonders why Bloomberg didn’t make a bid for ALM last year – and explains why.