If you grew up being fascinated by Court TV, then you’ve probably stumbled upon Law&Crime as its modern equivalent in the digital age — but in fact, Law&Crime actually acquired Court TV earlier this year.
As the preeminent source on the internet’s biggest legal cases, Law&Crime saw significant growth during the Lindsay Clancy trial with 256.1 million views across social platforms. Plus, the Court TV app even recorded its highest viewing week ever, while Law&Crime+ subscriptions more than doubled.
According to L&C President Rachel Stockman, this record-breaking interest is proof that Americans “want to know what’s happening in our judicial system.” Since the company’s start in 2017 (after launching in 2016 as LawNewz), they have offered high-profile legal analysis across platforms while expanding to documentary programming with networks and services such as Netflix, A+E, Fox Nation and HBO Max.
Stockman told Office With a View that offering expertise en masse with trained lawyers and court reporters is as important as ever since “anyone can kind of be a true crime creator nowadays,” though Law&Crime always make sure to still put the victim first.
Read TheWrap’s full conversation, slightly edited for brevity and clarity, below:
How did you first get started with Law&Crime?
I’ve been with Law&Crime since the beginning, so over nine years now. I was one of the founding partners, along with Dan Abrams, who started the company, and I had been a longtime court reporter and went to law school myself, so covering this genre has always been a big passion of mine. When I met with Dan the first time, it was just a couple of us that started the company, and it’s been amazing to see it take off over the years and be part of that growth.
How did you get involved with Court TV?
When we first started Law&Crime, it was a time period when Court TV didn’t exist; there was a period where it actually went off the air for a couple of years, so there was a real void in court coverage around the country. Obviously, the major news outlets and the local stations were covering it, but there really wasn’t a go-to place that people were watching these trials. We had an opportunity at that moment to really enter it, but instead of entering it in the traditional way, we entered it through YouTube and streaming, kind of before anyone else was really there. We had started our distribution on all of these platforms before people were using terms like FAST (free, ad-supported television), because we knew there was a need that people wanted this content, they weren’t accessing it the traditional way.
How do you determine which cases deserve coverage — data or editorial judgment?
Our team has spent years perfecting the system. It’s a real mix. We have a huge database of thousands and thousands of cases that we track, and we have a team where that’s their job. They have relationships with courthouses all across the country, so not only are they accessing publicly available data, they’re also calling their contacts or courthouses that we know are more media-friendly and they’re getting tips on some of these big cases. Or, we’ll see a big case that’s happening in the news and then our teams will talk to the attorneys or the investigators and really track it as it’s making its way through the judicial process.
Then we all get together as a team and we look on a daily basis at dozens of cases, of course, using analytics and metrics. But we also have a team that has such a deep experience in covering these kind of cases and understanding what cases could be of national importance, what cases could be of interest, and we all get together and collaborate and use all of that knowledge, including the analytics, to make a decision.
What was the first case where it felt like you were the authority that was leading coverage?
The first was the Kyle Rittenhouse case, which became a big national story. But then shortly following that was the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard case, and that was when, in terms of our YouTube audience, where we really saw the numbers begin to skyrocket; we saw the audience that really came to YouTube to see these cases.
Why is true crime — both scripted and unscripted — seemingly immune to Hollywood contraction?
For centuries, people have been fascinated by our justice system. Even before there were cameras in the courthouse, people would go to their local courthouse and sit and watch trials happening, and then they’d be written about in the local newspaper and they’d make their way all across the country. It’s just always been a fascination, particularly in America. It’s just over the years we’ve seen a migration of how people view them, they’re no longer physically going to the courthouse; they’re using Twitter, or they’re going to streaming.
That’s why I don’t think that this is any kind of fad, and I’m happy about that from a transparency perspective as a former journalist, that you know people are still interested and want to know what’s happening in our judicial system. Because the minute that people stop caring, that’s when we should all get quite concerned because closed doors are never a good thing for our society and for justice.
Do you switch up how you cover cases depending on the platform they’re available on?
Certain cases definitely resonate more with certain platforms than other platforms. Now that we’ve acquired Court TV, we’ve found that there’s certain cases that perhaps that audience is more interested in viewing than maybe our YouTube audience that leans a little bit younger. But the good thing is that you know on a given day we have anywhere from three to 16 different court cases coming in to our offices. There’s so many cases to choose from that we’re able to really make sure we’re giving the case to the audience that’s most interested in that particular case.
How did you manage to so naturally fold yourself into internet culture in a way that a lot of traditional mediums and genres haven’t been able to?
We’ve always approached this as non-legacy media, so really being nimble and staying ahead of where the audience is and reacting very quickly to new trends that we’re seeing. If we saw something bubble up, in a lot of legacy media, it may take three or four months to say, “Oh, maybe we should start utilizing this platform in our coverage.” Instead, we have continued to be nimble enough where it’s, “OK, next week, let’s jump on it and try.”
That’s something as we continue to scale as a company that’s been super important to me, that we keep the team nimble, curious, able to react to trends so that we remain one step ahead of where everyone else is. Once you start putting bureaucracy on top of what you’re doing, oftentimes, that’s when you get the red tape and you slow down. And then also, it’s something we try to foster amongst the team. We want people that maybe are editors or producers to say, “I have this great idea. What if we did X, Y, and Z?” and come to us with the idea. We want to be able to say yes to them and foster that culture where everyone feels like they can be entrepreneurs with us.
And how many employees do you have now, as compared to your start in 2017?
When I started, it was two of us. Now we’re around 200, not all full-time. But we also have a very robust productions business as well. We take a lot of the expertise and coverage in covering these cases, and then we work with the Netflixes of the world, A+E, Fox Nation, HBO Max, and we create documentaries based on some of the cases that we’ve covered or the access that we have. Oftentimes, our teams are the first to make relationships with attorneys on cases, or defendants, or even the victims. Protecting the victims and being very victim-focused has been a very important part of our philosophy.
How do your hosts and other talent prepare themselves for all that legal jargon?
Anyone can kind of be a true crime creator nowadays and profess to know about what’s going on, but it was really important to us — me, personally, and also our founder Dan Abrams, who is a longtime journalist and attorney — that when we’re covering these cases, we’re really coming from a place of journalism, from authority, from transparency. When people come to our coverage, they know what they’re getting, they know it’s not going to be sensational or coming from one angle or another. They know it will be balanced and can really delve into some of the complicated legal issues and break it down to an audience that perhaps is not always in the day-to-day legal world. So yes, a good handful of our journalists are actually attorneys, went to law school, but others have been trained journalists that have been working in the court system for quite some time as well.
There’s so many blurry lines, if you don’t have that legal understanding, having someone that can just be like, “OK, guys, this is what this attorney is saying, this is what the judge is saying, here’s what the law says, here’s what’s actually happening,” I think it’s so helpful with all the misinformation that’s going. That’s actually a new podcast we’re going to be launching, ‘Misinformation,’ which is going to be focusing on some of these cases where misinformation gets out there and really trying to get back to what are the facts, what is the spin?
Do you find the court of public opinion holds more or less weight nowadays than it did in the past?
I think you can’t deny that when a case has a lot of media attention, that it definitely changes the course of the case. You know when lawyers know that there’s a camera in their face, perhaps they wouldn’t say certain things that they may otherwise say, and certainly we have seen over the years judges being more dramatic or lawyers being more dramatic. But I always go back to transparency outweighing whatever other residual effects could happen as a result of one of these live cases. I’d rather know that the public is watching and holding our judicial system accountable than not.
Has there been any aspect of the Lindsay Clancy case that surprised you in particular?
We knew there would be high interest in this case because it’s a very relatable case, there are a lot of moms out there that have suffered from postpartum issues and just the horrible nature of the case was quite shocking. But we didn’t realize the extent it would really hit a national chord the way it did. As we saw through the progression, I believe it was six weeks, we saw that interest and fascination and the discussions surrounding all of these issues continue to grow and bubble up. It is very rare to have a case like this that really seems to strike a chord with so many people in America and have such divided opinions about what they think is justice in this case.
Because our society has been grappling with so many issues, all of a sudden you have a case that kind of just pushes it all to the forefront. I think it did bring some good issues to the forefront, with regards to postpartum and how our health system handles that and all of the issues regarding the treatments that women are given or not given. It really put a microscope on what’s going on.
So what’s next for Law&Crime?
Earlier this year, we launched a DTC SVOD app and we’re really trying to create something that’s a unique experience for the folks that are interested in learning and understanding these cases. This isn’t just shows or content that we’re putting on the app, which we definitely are, but we’re also giving the opportunity to see a lot of the original materials that we base our reporting off — so, trial footage, or if you want to see an indictment, or if you want to see an interrogation. People can dive deeper into these cases and they can see the truth for themselves. We think it’s very unique because there’s nowhere else you can get that verified information that’s vetted and gathered and curated in one spot.
