“Long May It Live:” New CEO Sounds Off on (What Used to Be Known As) West Publishing

“Long May It Live:” New CEO Sounds Off on (What Used to Be Known As) West Publishing
By Dan Ursini

On April 17th,  Thomson completed its acquisition of Reuters. The new name of the resulting corporate entity is Thomson Reuters. How will this affect   Thomson’s various law-oriented imprints,  which last year pulled in  $3.3 billion dollars?  In particular,  how will it impact ThomsonWest Publishing? This buyout has loomed as a possibility for a year now (see this NYT article from May 7, 2007, But reporting about it has stressed how Thomson-Reuters could seriously challenge the dominance of Bloomberg in the financial community.  Other issues have been largely ignored.

Fortunately articles with fresh angles from Twin Cities newspapers are surfacing online, especially the Pioneer Press TwinCities.Com.  They deal with the effects of the buyout on the American legal market-- dominated for most of the 20th century by  St. Paul-based West Publishing.  Gleaning through them, it is important to keep in mind that the new CEO of Thomson Reuters, the 48-year-old Thomas Glocer, is an attorney, a product of the Yale Law School, where he was introduced to Westlaw.  Please see in particular this article:

St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN) - April 19, 2008 - C1 Business
CEO HAS EYE ON EAGAN THE HEAD OF NEWLY MERGED THOMSON REUTERS SEES FUTURE PROFITS AND NEW JOBS AT THE COMPANY'S EAGAN FACILITY. THE FIRST STEP: MOVING AHEAD WITH A $150 MILLION EXPANSION.

It is apparent from it that Glocer favors all the legal products and services under Thomson Reuters’ new umbrella. The story says that Glocer enthuses,”“The North American Legal division "couldn't be more core, it couldn't be more strategic, and long may it live.”

The article continues:
“So if the boss is happy, the division's 7,000 employees can relax and focus on a planned $150 million expansion. Those plans stalled last year after Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed $15 million in state and local tax breaks and subsidies for the project.”

What was that expansion all about? According to This Week Online 6/8/07
“The expansion, planned as 425,000 square feet of additional office space and 80,000 square feet of additional data center space, was expected to bring about 2,000 new jobs to Eagan by 2012. The jobs were expected to pay an average salary of $70,000.”

It appears now these plans can become a reality. To return to the article in  St. Paul Pioneer Press TwinCities.Com:

“Technology and the Internet are vital to the company's well-being. Pawlenty visited Thomson Reuters on Friday to meet Glocer and sign a bill that creates a task force that will study how to bring the ultrafast broadband available in Japan and Sweden to Minnesota. Thomson officials lobbied for the bill.”

A related development  is detailed in an article in the April 10, 2008 Wall Street Journal details how Comcast has begun a superbroadband service in Minnesota, offering download speeds of 50 megabits per second:

Needless to say, these are all developments with a happy effect on West – or Thomson West – or Thomson Reuters North American Legal Division Formerly Known As West. Whatever name you choose to give to the core of American legal publishing, it is clear that it is going to remain solid.

Dan Ursini