Received a limited number but wide-ranging group of responses to my
earlier question about the Bloomberg Law product. General consensus is
that they have great financial information but aren't the easiest
interface in the world to master, and, in terms of pricing, they don't
really understand the law firm market as opposed to Wall Street. (I know
I didn't get a multi-million dollar bonus this year...)
In no particular order:
The BB decision for our Firm wasn't made in LA so we were not involved
in pricing etc but since we did end up with it in our office we try to
use it for everything and anything it can do. There are some drawbacks
but overall I like it. We signed on before the law platform so that part
seems like a bonus for us.
The financial tools are excellent although I don't know any one who has
had success using it on a desktop. Sales staff is annoying. It requires
real skill to use well.
Yuk, we looked at it last year. Too expensive and you need their
terminal and it doesn't look very user friendly. I would be curious to
know if anyone in law library land uses it. When I was at the _____ Bank
-- a few years ago -- our Corporate Library had a subscription and did
occasional searches for us.
We don't have Bloomberg, but all NYC-area law librarians get to go to
Bloomberg headquarters for free training (recent trainings discussed
mortgage debt securities and bonds) and interior design tips. I'm in
awe of the product. We were able to see individual loans within a
mortgage security and see bonds issued (not available on EDGAR).
We have Bloomberg here at . Like the law reports (e.g.,
Litigation, IP, insurance, etc.) and new company reports feature-
worthwhile service overall. Historical tranching has been useful here.
Great content but most of it available elsewhere. If use the software
instead of a Bloomberg terminal, is hard to load and takes up a lot of
IT staff time. Customer Support really inadeqate. Still basically a DOS
program and cranky to use. Doesn't really understand the legal market.
They are very aggressive, and when rebuffed by our library director and
the marketing department, they found yet another way in to the firm
through the partners - who set up a meeting, then said they were too
busy to attend and asked that the library staff and me (market research)
sit in for them. Upon review, we found that there wasn't a single thing
that they could offer us that we didn't already have via some other
source, AND their reps couldn't clearly articulate what their pricing
structure was, effectively answer our questions, or even delineate their
value proposition compared to their competition (whose product/service
offerings they could not even identify). We told them if they could
offer us more data/cheaper/faster, we'd consider. We haven't heard back
from them (yet).
We tried it about a year ago and did not subscribe because it was both
expensive and hard to
So I guess I won't be meeting Mayor Bloomberg any time soon...
Bob Ryan
Librarian
Hill, Farrer & Burrill, LLP
300 South Grand Ave, 37th Fl.
Los Angeles, CA 90071
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