A law title unto themselves

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov 15, 1997 by Jeff Garigliano

Bill Murphy and Jamie Diaferia have the law on their side, or at least a thorough knowledge of the law. The two graduated from the University of Connecticut Law School last spring, but rather than enter the legal profession they decided to start their own magazine. Murphy became the publisher and Diaferia became editor in chief of J.D.: The Law Student's Survival Guide, a monthly tabloid for the market they know best.

"We were both interested in being lawyers but not really in practicing law," Murphy says. Both had journalism experience--Murphy as a newspaper reporter at the New Haven Register, and Diaferia as a stringer for The New York Times. The pair had also helped launch UConn's first university-wide newspaper for prelaw students, called Public Forum.

J.D. is free, with a controlled circulation, an ad-supported business model and a unique distribution method: Murphy and Diaferia coordinate with the career placement offices at law schools across the country to get their magazine bulk-mailed in. "It's not as expensive as getting a [periodicals] permit," Murphy says. The copies then get delivered by hand to students' campus mailboxes. As of the second issue (which went out in late September), J.D. had a circulation of 75,000 at 100 law schools nationwide. While their total audience isn't much bigger (about 128,000 students at 179 ABA-accredited institutions, plus enrollment at the 50 or so state-accredited schools), Murphy and Diaferia plan to expand to include pre-law students, which would bump potential readership up to 250,000.

In hopes of making J.D. a must-read on law campuses, the two give away classified job ads. "There's not really one centralized place where students can go for job listings," Murphy says. "We have too many to actually fit in the magazine, so we are trying to do a lot of that on our Web site (located at www.jdmag.com). It's why schools are willing to distribute it for us."

There are at least two other magazine titles currently vying for the tired eyes of the nation's law students. One is the Arlington, Virginia-based National Jurist, a 100,000-circulation paid and nonpaid title launched in 1991 by a law school graduate. The second, Student Lawyer, is published by the American Bar Association and mailed as part of the membership package sent to the approximately 30,000 students who join the ABA while still in school. Rita Novak, business manager for ad sales at Student Lawyer, says her title is nonprofit so ad pages in it aren't tracked and she declined to estimate how many run in a typical issue. But she points out that law students might not make the ideal universe of readers. "Our magazines do not lend themselves to consumer advertising," she says. "[The students] have the potential to earn money, but a lot of them are taking loans to get through school. So they don't have a lot of disposable income."

Advertisers in the first issue of J.D. included a bar review company and Matthew Bender's Understanding Law series of study guides. Murphy says he and Diaferia are interested in establishing their brand and building name-recognition before they start pushing for heavy advertising. "There are just so many people who want to reach law students," Murphy says, "and they don't really have a vehicle."

Each issue of J.D. profiles someone in the legal field, but not necessarily a celebrity. The highlight of the premier issue, for example, was an interview with Dr. Henry Lee, the forensic scientist who testified for O.J. Simpson's defense. The second issue profiled a man who enrolled in law school after his mother was wrongly convicted of murder. (The man graduated, took her case and got the conviction overturned.) "We try to write more on the edge," Murphy says, comparing his title to the competitors. "We're pretty irreverent. There's pressure to take [law school] very seriously, and we just refuse to take it seriously, which resonates with students."

Though they've raised capital from some independent sources, Murphy says he and Diaferia have had to be resourceful while getting their title off the ground. To gain publicity and get their first issue distributed last spring (and to get out of class for a week, they'll admit), the two rented a truck and hand-delivered copies to some 25 law schools throughout the Northeast. They also got production help for the first issue by pairing with a magazine class at Central Connecticut State University. Much of the design and prepress work, which today is done on a freelance basis, was handled by students and considered course work for them, so it didn't cost Murphy and Diaferia anything.

"We started this on a shoestring," Murphy says. "When we began, we were just law students who were doing this almost as a test. But we had good results in the beginning. And we enjoy the writing and the whole idea of running a magazine."

A full-page black-and-white ad costs $2,100. Address: 65 Water St., 2nd floor, Worcester, MA 01604; 888-536-2410; e-mail: jaydeemag@aol.com. Web site: www.jdmag.com.