Incisive Media announced plans this week to merge two of its legal
publications—the National Law Journal and Legal Times—into one title.
The combined publication, which will operate under the National Law
Journal brand and debut in May, will offer print and online national
legal news and analysis. David Brown, editor and publisher of Legal
Times, will serve as editor-in-chief.
According to Stephen Lincoln, national group publisher of Incisive
Media’s legal division, there were two reasons for the merge. “With a
new administration and topics like the economic stimulus package,
there’s a tremendous amount of things going on D.C. that affect attorneys
all over the country,” he said. “So we felt the change was very
timely. On the other hand, part of what made Legal Times so successful
was its classified advertising section. But because of the economy and
because classifieds have mostly gone online, things are not as great as
they were before.”
Legal Times currently has a total circulation of 5,000, while the
National Law Journal has a total circ of 15,000. Lincoln says
that the new publication will have a combined paid circulation of
approximately 17,000. (Part of the Journal’s current
circulation is non-paid controlled distribution and will be decreased.)
In conjunction with the merger, the NLJ Web site will be redesigned and include the popular BLT Blog of Legal
Times
Lincoln said that both brands will continue to have a separate
presence online, at least for now. “We’re going to maintain separate
entities online for both Legal Times and the National Law Journal and
see how it works out,” he said. “We’re hoping to eventually take the
best aspects of each and incorporate them together.”
According to Lincoln, NLJ.com averages of 429,000 page views per month, while LegalTimes.com gets about 463,000 page views.
