Fastcase to Offer Access to Expert Treatises from Wolters Kluwer

I have said before and I continue to believe that for a legal research company to compete against the longstanding dominance of Westlaw and LexisNexis, having secondary content such as treatises and practice guides is the Holy Grail.

Fastcase clearly sees it the same way. It has steadily been building its libraries of secondary content, acquiring Loislaw in 2015, bringing on former LexisNexis VP Steve Errick to develop new editorial products, adding blog posts and commentary from the LexBlog network, launching a legal publishing arm in November, and, just two weeks ago, debuting its first law journal, RAIL: The Journal of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & Law.

Today, Fastcase is announcing another step in that direction. Through a partnership with Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S., it will offer an extensive collection of WK’s expert treatises, handbooks and other secondary sources.

The collection includes 129 titles covering areas of law such as bankruptcy, business, construction, elder law, employment, estate planning, family, litigation, health, insurance, pension and benefits, personal injury and real estate.

“This partnership intentionally closes the gap between Fastcase and the incumbents in the legal publishing market,” Fastcase CEO Ed Walters said. “There are vanishingly few advantages that the old players have left. With the analytics of Docket Alarm, secondary treatises from Wolters Kluwer, legal news from LexBlog, and our innovative research platform and mobile apps, Fastcase is a complete solution for legal researchers.”

But for Fastcase subscribers, there are two limitations. One is that the titles will be available only by purchase. So, if a subscriber wants, for example, Bankruptcy Litigation and Practice, the subscriber will have to purchase it for an annual price of $510. (A complete list of titles and prices is below.)

Second, Fastcase’s licensing agreement with WK permits it to sell these titles only to subscribers in firms of 1-9 lawyers. Subscribers at larger firms will be able to purchase these only through WK.

Fastcase users will see the new titles in the library immediately as of today. Those in firms of fewer than 10 lawyers will be able to subscribe to and use the materials from directly within the Fastcase application.

The agreement to provide the Wolters Kluwer content extends a partnership that began when Fastcase purchased legal research provider Loislaw from Wolters Kluwer in 2015, but this agreement includes titles that were not available for sale in Loislaw.

For WK, the licensing agreement provides an effective distribution channel for it to reach a wider audience in the small firm segment, said Dean Sonderegger, vice president and general manager of Legal Markets, Innovation at WK. “As a rising innovator in the space, Fastcase was the clear choice and we’re pleased that our titles and expert authors will receive even greater exposure and reach more professionals.”

Below is the full list of titles that will be available and their prices.