CRIV received a request for assistance from an academic law librarian regarding titles transitioning from Thomson Reuters to West Academic due to the sale of its Law School Publishing business. CRIV contacted Lori Hedstrom, National Manager, Library Relations and below is her response:
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As you are aware, in early 2013 Thomson Reuters sold its Law School Publishing (LSP) business to Eureka Growth Capital. The new business is named West Academic.
The divestiture included the West Academic Publishing, Foundation Press and Gilbert’s imprints. Products created for the law school market such as the American Casebook Series, the University Casebook Series, Hornbooks, Nutshells, Black Law Outlines and Gilbert’s were included in the sale. Black’s Law Dictionary, a reference product and a starting point for legal research, remains with Thomson Reuters. A complete list of divested West Academic titles can be found at http://legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/WAP.
During the transition, we have worked closely with West Academic to provide information to customers regarding their individual accounts. Any new orders placed through Thomson Reuters for West Academic titles prior to Dec. 31, 2013 have been or will be fulfilled by Thomson Reuters. Orders placed on or after Jan. 1, 2014 have been or will be fulfilled by West Academic.
We have spoken with Chris Parton, president and CEO of West Academic, and as the product owner, West Academic can answer the specific questions about their products, structure of accounts and any discontinuation of products. For questions related to West Academic, customers may contact their representative at (800) 782-1272 or inquiries@westacademic.com. For questions related to Thomson Reuters, customers may call us at 1-800-328-4880.
Thomson Reuters’ relationships with law schools, faculty and law students remain critically important, and we will continue to offer WestlawNext to law schools for staff and student use. Please let me know if you have any further questions that I may be able to answer.
If you have a similar issue or any issue CRIV can assist with, please use our Request for Assistance form available at http://aallnet.org/main-menu/Advocacy/vendorrelations/request-assistance.html.
Cynthia Myers, CRIV Chair
CRIV Blog 
My concern is that TR made no effort to inform customers about which specific titles the customer had on order through TR were being transferred to West Academic. Requiring the customer to check all of their TR orders against the list of titles switched to West Academic at the provided url did not strike me as particularly customer service oriented. Also they have left the burden with the customer to figure out how much the loss of these titles in a customer’s LMA will give the customer room to add new titles to their LMA at no additional cost during a swap time. In the meantime, they get to keep collecting LMA fees for materials they sold out from under the customer and no longer provide.
Wendy Moore
Acquisitions Librarian
Univ. of Georgia Law Library