Over the last few years, many at UNC Law have become heavy
Bloomberg Law users, especially as Bloomberg has added more content,
features, and services to compete with the our other two major legal research
databases, LexisNexis and Westlaw. Recently
we received an update from Bloomberg on some noteworthy new and innovative additions
to the database.
One is Bloomgberg’s new online-only Bankruptcy Treatise,
available on Bloomberg Law through the main tabs under Practice Centers
>> Bankruptcy. Long in the making, the new treatise is designed to compete with more established works; Bloomberg advertises it as having over 600
chapters and 13,000 pages of analysis—similar in size to West’s mainstay, Norton Bankruptcy Law and Practice 3d. The Honorable D. Michael Lynn, U.S. Bankruptcy
Court for the Northern District of Texas, is the Editor-in-Chief of the
treatise, and his work is accompanied by over 60 other contributing authors and
editors. Bloomberg seems to have made a thoughtful
effort to develop an authoritative competitor to the existing field of Bankruptcy treatises.
But what’s most notable and innovative about Bloomberg’s new Bankruptcy Treatise is the way the treatise is created and updated: according to
Bloomberg, this is done “in real time,” with a team of editors constantly
updating the treatise to reflect recent changes in law. Bloomberg leverages its
considerable news teams—presumably those same people who provide the daily and weekly updates
that show up in your inbox as Bloomberg/BNA Law Reports and Insights—to alert
the editors to breaking developments that might merit treatment in the
treatise.
For fast changing areas of the law, this new model for
updating seems like a pretty natural next step, especially for a
treatise that exists only online. No frequent print loose-leaf filing is required. We will see how Bloomberg manages the updates
(hopefully they will do it well), and whether they extend this model to new
products in other fast-changing areas of the law, such as securities, health,
or intellectual property.
We will write a few more blog posts in the next few weeks
updating you on other new Bloomberg additions, so keep a look out and check
back if you are interested.
Posted by David R. Hansen (Dave) on Thu. December 18, 2014 10:01 AM
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