The global legal research company vLex will announce today that it has acquired Justis Publishing Ltd., a 33-year-old UK-based online legal publisher with clients in more than 40 countries including the UK, Ireland, the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand.

Justis, headquartered in London, will become part of vLex. Justis Managing Director Masoud Gerami will remain in his role and all 30 or so Justis employees will join vLex.

vLex is not disclosing the terms of the deal.

“This further advances vLex’s position as a global competitor for legal research, giving us deeper bench strength, deeper client relationships and deeper content relationships,” LaChance said.

vLex is an international legal research service with materials from more than 100 countries, including many civil law jurisdictions. This acquisition gives vLex a greater balance of common law materials and extends its coverage in 20 countries from partial to comprehensive, according to Colin LaChance, interim general manager for vLex in North America.

Justis’s flagship product, JustisOne, is a legal research platform used by law firms, barristers, government departments and academic institutions around the world, LaChance said. It has the most comprehensive collection of common law cases, he said, including content from Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Singapore, the UK, the Caribbean Commonwealth islands and the British West Indies.

In addition to giving vLex a greater foothold in the UK legal market, the acquisition combines Justis’s case law collection with vLex’s AI-powered tools and services, such as Vincent and Iceberg AI, thereby providing contextual research and access to global legal resources to the UK and other key markets covered by Justis, LaChance said.

In a statement, Lluis Faus, vLex CEO, said:

“This acquisition marks an exciting period for vLex, demonstrating our relentless commitment to the growth of our exclusive content coverage and global operations. The combination of Justis and vLex’s collections enables us to further deliver on our goal of building the most comprehensive global
solution for legal professionals.”

There will be no immediate changes to either company’s products, as the immediate focus will be on management and strategy integration. At a later stage, the focus will turn to content and product integration.

Photo of Bob Ambrogi Bob Ambrogi

Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.