John Briggs West (August 6, 1852 – March 14, 1922) was an American publisher who founded
Westlaw
Westlaw is an online legal research service and proprietary database for lawyers and legal professionals available in over 60 countries. Information resources on Westlaw include more than 40,000 databases of case law, state and federal statute ...
, and
West Publishing
West (also known by its original name, West Publishing) is a business owned by Thomson Reuters that publishes legal, business, and regulatory information in print, and on electronic services such as Westlaw. Since the late 19th century, West ha ...
.
Early life
John Briggs West was born in
Roxbury, Massachusetts
Roxbury () is a Neighborhoods in Boston, neighborhood within the City of Boston, Massachusetts.
Roxbury is a Municipal annexation in the United States, dissolved municipality and one of 23 official neighborhoods of Boston used by the city for n ...
, August 6, 1852.
He had four siblings, including a brother, Horatio.
His parents were William Carter, a
bookkeeper, and Louisa Phoebe West.
Career
In 1870, at the age of 18, West, who was neither a lawyer nor a college graduate, began work as a salesman for the D.D. Merrill Book Store, in
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County, Minnesota, Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississip ...
. Among other books, the store sold law books and West became aware of frontier lawyers' dissatisfaction with the quality and availability of legal publications. In 1872, West went into business for himself as "John B. West, Publisher and Book Seller", reprinting legal treatises, publishing legal forms, and producing a much-appreciated index to the Minnesota statutes.
In 1899 he abruptly left the West Publishing Company and began a competing law publisher, the Keefe-Davidson Law Book Company, and subsequently made disparaging remarks about the West key-number digest system, but within a decade his new company lost a major lawsuit and was soon out of business. He retired to southern California.
[Robt. M. Jarvis, ''John B. West: Founder of the West Publishing Company", Amer. Jl. of Legal History, vol. 50 (Jan. 2008-2010) page 17.]
He died March 14, 1922, and was buried at the Oakland Cemetery, in Saint Paul.
References
Bibliography
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1852 births
1922 deaths
American publishers (people)
People from Roxbury, Boston
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