Lead Launch

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May 1, 2002 by Susan Thea Posnock

Byline: Susan Thea Posnock

legal affairs url www.legalaffairs.org company Legal Affairs Inc. launch April 2 (May/June cover date) subscription $49.95 newsstand price $8.95 ad rates Full-page, four-color ad: $7,000 target audience Lawyers and non-lawyers interested in legal issues frequency Bimonthly editor and president Lincoln Caplan chairman Anthony Kronman publishing director Lisa Smith

America's love-hate relationship with the legal profession intensifies all the time. And while nothing has quite satisfied since OJ was acquitted, the public's fascination with legal matters is hardly waning. Attorneys are our newest celebrities, and as such, we want to know everything. So much so that this February, former CNN legal correspondent Greta Van Susteren's cosmetic surgery made the cover of People. And when she made her debut on Fox TV with her new - shall we say, fresher - look, 1.6 million Americans tuned in.

Legal Affairs, a new general-interest title that promises to profile the busy "intersection of law and life," is hoping to capitalize on the country's growing fascination with judicature - not necessarily People-style, but along the lines of what you might expect in The Atlantic Monthly or The New Yorker, says Lincoln Caplan, editor and president of the new title. "There's a tremendous appetite for information about law," he says. "[Nonetheless], there hasn't been a magazine that bridges the gap between the kind of material you find in legal journals and general magazines."

Caplan knows both worlds well. A Harvard Law School graduate, he penned five law books between writing gigs at The New Yorker, The New Republic and U.S. News & World Report. But the idea for the magazine actually came from an old Yale colleague, Boris Bittker, back in 1994. Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale, Bittker developed and published an issue of a journal called The Yale Survey of Current Legal Issues because he was frustrated by the indigestible writing in law reviews. Bittker thought that legal scholars were showing a lack of interest in what he called the link between law and actual life. So he wrote his own journal and sent it on to Caplan. The two joined forces and shopped the concept, but failed to find funding.

The project lay dormant until 1998, when Caplan was offered a teaching position at Yale Law School. This time, the idea found a benefactor. Legal Affairs was started with a $1.2 million fund that Yale Law School helped raise. Anthony Kronman, dean of the school, is chairman of Legal Affairs' corporate board. And as a nonprofit educational publication, the magazine will be supported by the law school through its start-up phase. But the goal is to be self-sufficient - and despite the magazine's relationship with Yale, Caplan says it is editorially independent.

going a step further

Editorially, the magazine wants to pick up where mainstream literary magazines end in terms of legal coverage. The idea is to provide the depth of a law journal, minus the legalese. "Our [first] cover story is about a topic that now seems appropriate for a weekly magazine because it focuses on the chief justice in the Israeli court and his role in shaping choices in Israeli society," says Caplan. "It's also about how a society balances choices between security and liberty, which America has been preoccupied with since last September."

But the tone isn't as serious as it first appears. Lighter articles - such as essay on TV courtroom judges and a chart of "Legal Affairs All-Time All-Stars" - are sprinkled into the mix to balance the more somber pieces. Says Caplan: "The idea is to have a mix - satirical, historical, analytical, cartoons - as well as investigative pieces and a diverse range of viewpoints."

The magazine is targeted at the masses looking for more on the law, and at attorneys who are yearning for more on public affairs. Caplan sees his readers as those who believe there's an important conversation in and out of the legal world about what the law profession should be. One of the reasons Yale Law School is backing the start-up "is to stir that kind of conversation within the legal world and between the legal world and broader society," he says.

The first issue was mailed to about 12,000 nonpaid subscribers who responded to direct mail offers. Another 8,000 copies hit newsstands in places like Barnes & Noble, Borders and transportation centers. The goal, says Lisa Smith, publishing director, is to acquire 10,000 paid subscribers by the end of this year. Eventually, the magazine hopes to secure a paid subscriber base of 40,000 because, while the title does accept advertising, the business plan calls for circulation to drive revenue, says Smith.

In the future, Caplan believes Legal Affairs' pitch between legal journals and general interest will win advertisers from both sides. But today he's enjoying the luxury afforded by the nonprofit status. "We need to succeed in the market and are committed to succeed, but [the magazine] is somewhat buffered from the pressure to do so very quickly," he says.