Legal Commentary

It's official! We're "back to the future," reclaiming our ALM moniker, and parting ways with Incisive Media. Our CEO/President Bill Pollak writes about it on his Bill's Blog here. Press releases from ALM can be found here and from Incisive UK, here.

Says Pollak (left):  "For those who have been with the company for a while, this will feel a bit like "back to the future". For 10 years, from 1997 to 2007, we were an independent company owned directly by a private equity fund (Wasserstein & Co.). And here we are, once again an independent company owned directly by a private equity fund (Apax). We were successful in the last go round, and I have no doubt that we will succeed in this one as well."

If the karma godz are good to me, I will hit my 25th anniversary with this company on Feb 5, 2010 -- and this is my sixth ownership regime. Personally, at the risk of sounding like an insulin-inducing über cheerleader, I genuinely love this place, and the entrepreneurial spirit and passion for first-class journalism that has remained its core since my cub reporter days at The Recorder under the leadership of the late George McDonald.

Over the last 24 years, we've been blessed with teams of smart, determined, fearless, charismatic, and occasionally-exasperating leaders ? who each brought his or her unique vision to this organization and helped shape its evolution. No one of them is or was perfect; we have had our successes and disappointments over the years (I'm still smarting that Law Firm Inc. never quite gained critical mass). But through all the changes and personalities, ALM (née American Lawyer Media) has remained an environment that offers merit-based opportunities to excel individually while we collectively strive to creatively serve our audience with the best possible journalism, live programs, books, tradeshows, research, pro bono contributions, etc., etc., etc.

And we always have operated with a fierce determination that those opportunities are open to everyone, no matter gender, age, religion, physical disabilities, or the color of our skin. (We're even nice to Red Sox fans.) I am proud ? and grateful ? to work here.

Oh yeah: And I'm really, really happy that I can go back to mbay@alm.com. Goodbye m-o-n-i-c-a-.b-a-y-@-i-n-c-i-s-i-v-e-m-e-d-i-a-.-c-o-m. 

Congrats to Bill and the entire management team.

Onward.