British lawyers have an insatiable appetite for reading about themselves, with a lively and competitive specialist press — including three big weeklies, two smaller niche weeklies, a glossy business monthly and numerous specialist practice titles — catering for that hunger. As the English legal profession stares down the barrel of a global recession, can it continue to support such a crowded field?

There were only two significant players in the 1990-91 recession — the Gazette, owned by the Law Society, and The Lawyer, launched at the end of the Eighties. Both survived the downturn and were stronger for it.

They and the third big player, Legal Week, are jousting for the same revenue stream — a potentially dwindling font of recruitment advertising. The Lawyer and Legal Week acknowledge that they are targeting the vulnerable City and company-commercial sector. Issue sizes are down across the board, and while most are reluctant to be named, advertisers predict a rocky ride for all three publications.

On the face of it the 105-year-old Gazette should be safest. It covers the entire legal profession, is viewed as editorially serious and, as part of the Law Society, it has access to that body’s membership list, resulting in an audited circulation of about 115,000, easily three times larger than the other two.

The Law Society ownership can be an editorial obstacle as well as a commercial benefit, with some readers and advertisers arguing that it is overly influenced by society bureaucrats and elected council members. Paul Rogerson, the editor, disputes this: “There is clear agreement within the Law Society that the Gazette is not the mouthpiece of Chancery Lane.”

One significant handicap is that the Gazette is the johnny-come-lately in online publishing. “It is nowhere in the market. It arrived far too late,” says one senior recruitment agent.

By contrast, The Lawyer is seen as having the best legal profession website for both editorial and recruitment. “Original reporting and original thought are what set The Lawyer apart,” Catrin Griffiths, the long-standing editor, says. Many advertisers agree with her. Indeed, the paper has never lost its reputation for breaking stories and getting under the skin of the top firms in the City and it has sewn up the editorial and commercial sides of the in-house counsel sector. While perhaps not having all its eggs in the City basket, it has most of them nestling in the Square Mile. So when the company-commercial sector starts to feel the pinch, so too might The Lawyer.

The publication was taken off guard by the defection nine years ago of its editor and publisher, who launched Legal Week. It retains its launch reputation for being innovative and challenging, high-brow but not dull. “Over the past two years we’ve moved to position the title even further upmarket . . . we don’t get side-tracked into sensationalism,” Alex Novarese, the editor, says. The paper’s publishing house, Incisive Media, recently bought American Lawyer, giving Legal Week a good transatlantic capability.

To compete, The Lawyer has posted two staffers to New York and Legal Week is still viewed as the new kid on the block by advertisers and therefore potentially vulnerable in a contracting market. Some suggest that its page rates are the cheapest of the three — with the Gazette the dearest and The Lawyer in the middle — potentially indicating a lack of commercial confidence. Despite its recent relaunch, one recruitment consultant described Legal Week’s website as being “at least four years behind that of The Lawyer”.

Each of the big three has its cross to bear in the credit crunch. “The two quiet markets are the big London law firms and the regions,” a senior recruitment consultant says. Legal Week, he predicts, could suffer from the City slowdown: “In a recession, advertisers tend to move towards the established player and that is The Lawyer.” Likewise, the Gazette, traditionally stronger in the regions, is likely to be hit by a slowdown there: “Its income is going to fall dramatically over the next few months,” the consultant predicts.

Ironically, it is the Legal Services Act 2007 that could have the most profound impact on the weekly market. The Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Law Society’s increasingly powerful sibling, is rumoured to be lobbying the Legal Services Board for complete independence from Chancery Lane. If successful, the society might be forced to seek subscriptions independently from the practising certificate fee.

Should membership tumble and the Gazette’s huge circulation be slashed, advertisers might not find the newspaper quite such an attractive proposition. The prospect is brushed aside by John Tarry, the Law Society commercial director: “That’s a highly speculative question based on an approach that we are not currently exploring.”

There is considerable optimism at Centaur, owners of The Lawyer. Libby Child, the publishing director, says: “We will come out of this economic downturn with three weeklies still in the market. Incisive and Centaur are both experienced publishers — they don’t back out of markets just because there is a recession.” Tarry is equally optimistic: “It is a given that the Law Society is in the legal [publishing] market for the long haul.”

The author edited the Gazette in 2000-07

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