Feds Say Law360 Is ‘Essential,’ Has No Equal

The reporters and editors of Law360 breathe life into the critical legal resource each day and make it a success in the eyes of subscribers who rely on its news alerts, feature stories, and analyses to stay current.

No need to take our word for it. Just ask the federal government.

The coverage provided by Law360 reporters and editors is “essential” to the U.S. Department of Justice’s mission, the department said in a 2018 proposal to subscribe to the top-notch publication.

“Law360 is the only source that provides extensive coverage of current litigation and issues across a broad spectrum of legal topics,” the department said. “No other source provides the ease of use, daily coverage, and ready access to important documents all in one search, and includes expert analysis on top legal topics on a daily basis.”

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office showered Law360 with similar plaudits in expressing its reliance on the work of the reporting and editing staff. The office said in 2022 procurement papers it had a “continual need” for the outlet’s “real-time breaking news and legal analysis alerts.”

Other news services the patent office considered to fill its needs weren’t real-time, in some instances, or they focused on irrelevant news events and social media issues, it said.

The USPTO added that having to go without Law360’s daily news reports and analyses would limit its lawyers’ ability to “adequately research relevant case law” — or worse, would “increase the risk of missing important relevant legal information, which could result in having to repeat steps in the patent claim adjudication process, slowing it down and resulting in additional legal costs.”

An alternative — and potentially inferior — product could be disastrous, the patent office said. It explained that “lower productivity and efficiency, increase in unfavorable adjudications, and increase in operational and court costs” could be in the cards without Law360’s coverage.

The filings uniformly show that public-sector attorneys rely on the work of Law360 and its reporters and editors.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Office of Chief Counsel sought Law360 access in August 2024. Its procurement filing said the legal coverage, particularly related to insurance, supplied “the required support without a lapse in these mission-critical services.”

FEMA said it thought about holding a competition to have publications try to offer what it sought in Law360 but ultimately abandoned that idea.

“There are other resources that provide piecemeal alternatives,” the agency said, “but they did not provide quite the depth of resources as Law360. To provide a similar level of service, a competitor would need to not only aggregate the news but also develop a team of writers and legal analysts with a comparable level of experience.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said the publication is on “the forefront of breaking news in immigration law.” The agency said the impacts would be serious if attorneys in its Office of the Chief Counsel didn’t have Law360’s regular, daily coverage at their fingertips.

“Failure to procure these exact subscriptions will result in USCIS, OCC not having the latest information on immigration law,” the agency said in a 2023 procurement request. “In turn, this may result in inaccurate information being provided to contracting or other program offices and courtroom or other judicial matters decided unfavorably against USCIS, OCC.”

It continued, “This impacts not only the USCIS mission, but also the lives of potential immigrants.”

NASA said Law360’s coverage was a secondary resource it needed to keep up on legal issues in government contracts, employment law, intellectual property, and environmental law.  It also envisioned using the coverage to keep up with news about NASA and its myriad contractors.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s Office of General Counsel, in a 2020 procurement document, characterized Law360 as “essential to the efficient completion of critical agency work.” 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said in its own procurement document in 2018 that Law360 ”is the only news source that provides the full spectrum of news reporting in the practice areas on a daily basis.”

A spokesperson for the USPTO declined to comment when reached Tuesday. Representatives of the other agencies were not immediately available for comment.

–Editing by Covey Son and Marygrace Anderson.

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the name of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.