Rumors of the death of law department newsletters may be premature

An obituary appeared here six months ago (See my post of Sept. 4, 2006 and its view that department newsletters have dried up.). The anti-newsletter forces described in that post certainly exist, but there are not just survivors but thrivers. InsideCounsel, Sept. 2006 mentions that BMO Financial (at 65) e-mails its newsletter, “Legal Briefs,” to 400 executives and 100 senior managers. The BMO law department abolished the former glossy and expensive version, which lightens the budget by “a couple thousand dollars per issue.”

The very next page describes the bimonthly e-newsletter that the lawyers of Lucent Technologies distribute. From the short mention, it is not clear whether or not the e-newsletter also goes out to clients of the department. It may be an internal method to share knowledge and keep people in the loop.