ABSTRACT

The radical transformation of the legal publishing industry since 1979 is largely the consequence of the confluence of two twentieth-century developments: (1) the dramatic relaxation of the antitrust standards governing mergers and acquisitions; and (2) the realisation by international investors of the profit potential presented by professional publishing, of which legal publishing emerged as a significant specialty at the end of the twentieth century. This chapter discusses the transformation of the legal publishing industry after describing how United States antitrust law evolved over the course of the century to create an environment conducive to the emergence of a globalised and highly concentrated commercial legal publishing industry.1