Welcome to MORE on Bloomberg Law: BNA Debuts on the Blaw Platform

The skeptics said it couldn't be done. The cynics said it wouldn't be done ( at no additional cost to subscribers.) Only six months after the acquisition of BNA in September 2011, Bloomberg Law has loaded and integrated BNA content into the Blaw platform. And they are not charging their subscribers for the "mother lode" of content that became available virtually over night.

Today's press release, announced the full integration of  BNA content as well as a major redesign of the Bloomberg Law platform.

"When we first welcomed BNA to the Bloomberg family, we promised this match would create a unique combination of premium content, deep subject matter expertise and world-class technological capabilities," said Dan Doctoroff, CEO and President of Bloomberg. "Today marks a milestone in which we are delivering on that promise by creating one of the most powerful products in legal research."

The newly loaded BNA content is fully searchable and provides links  to documents from Bloomberg Law. The BNA classification systems for Labor, Employee Benefits and Intellectual Property are now navigable and add a new dimension of research to the Blaw platform.

BNA Content Added to Bloomberg Law:

The Newsletters. Including the "high ticket" BNA Dailys, The Daily Report for Executives, The Daily Labor Reporter, the Daily Tax Report and US Law Week and over 100 other titles can be routed to any subscriber in "one click."

The Portfolios.  The Tax Management Portfolios and Corporate Practice Portfolios

Secondary Sources; BNA Treatises, Professional Books,  and manuals

Practice Centers:The Labor, Employee Benefits and Intellectual Property practice centers introduce BNA's proprietary headnote and classification system into the Bloomberg Law platform. The BNA analytical materials now contain links to Bloomberg's primary sources such as opinions, dockets, statutes and regulations as well as Bloomberg's company and market information.

Platform Enhancements Bloomberg has streamlined navigation and access. Deb Sours, a regional Research Services Manager at DLA Piper  who has been using BLaw for over a year loves the new look and feel of the platform that was released today. According to Sours "The new interface provides a cleaner and more concise format for accessing content."  If you enter a company name into the Blaw "Go bar" you see a menu of search options which  can retrieve information about the company and it's executives. One click will take you to the caselaw, dockets, SEC filings, company  and executive profiles.

Enhancements to Bloomberg Law’s Interface



The Bloomberg "Go Bar" Displays  sources of company  information

What's Next? I spoke with Lou Andeozzi, Chairman of Bloomberg Law  today to see if I could get some insights into any upcoming plans for Bloomberg Law. While he disclosed no specific plans for adding new content, he reaffirmed that "Bloomberg Law will follow the model originally set by the Bloomberg terminal. We will continue to add content and functionality which grow the value of Bloomberg Law to lawyers at no additional cost." For the short term they will be focusing on enhancing the functionality and integration of the Bloomberg and BNA content. Tax Law remains one big practice which is in need of a fully developed practice center. Given the speed of the integration of the first 3 practice centers which were released today, I expect that the market may also be surprised by a speedy release of the Tax Practice Center in the near future.