RELX, the parent company of LexisNexis Legal & Professional, today (23 July) announced record half-year results, with underlying revenues up 7%; adjusted operating profit up 9%; and adjusted earnings per share up 11%. LexisNexis was RELX’s fastest-growing division, with underlying revenues accelerating from 9% in 2025 to 10% in the first half, the fastest growth rate in its history. LexisNexis revenues reached a record £959m, up from £900m in the same period last year. In dollar terms, it added about $78m in the period or $156m on an annualised basis. Adjusted operating profits increased 13% to £208m.
Speaking to Legal IT Insider, Sean Fitzpatrick, LexisNexis’ global CEO for legal, said that 90% of new business for LexisNexis came from AI related products. The primary driver is Lexis+ with Protégé, but LexisNexis continues to grow the Protégé brand, which now includes 15 generative AI products, including Intelligize and PatentSight.
Fitzpatrick says that growth came across all geographies and that the real differentiator has been LexisNexis’ multi-model approach, which it has taken from the beginning. “We use the model that gives the customer the best answer,” he said.
Also key has been LexisNexis’ ability to leverage its own proprietary data set. Fitzpatrick said that LexisNexis’ has unparalleled records, data sources and court links “with no cut off dates” and continuous updates. “Because we have that repository, we can get better results with smaller models,” he said. “You don’t have to search every corner of the internet, and we can manage our costs more effectively.”
What this is driving towards, as tech vendors move to a consumption rather than subscription model for token use, is that LexisNexis is not under pressure to do the same, with token costs representing less than 1% of its costs.
“While others are talking about moving to a consumption model, we don’t have any plans to do that, and our customers really like that,” Fitzpatrick said. Customers are inevitably worried about the impact of financial unpredictability, and Fitzpatrick references one conversation where the customer had anticipated costs of $300,000 from one vendor but ended up with a bill of $500,000. “That can have a big impact and we don’t have the need to do that at this point,” he says.
In terms of what ‘at this point’ might mean, Fitzpatrick points out that LexisNexis is entering three-year contracts with customers that provide subscription-based billing, which in term terms is about as much of a cushion as you’re ever likely to get.
Taking a high level view of today’s announcement, results can be a double edged sword in a world where tech vendors are accused of charging too much money. What they will do is reassure the market that customers are voting with their wallets, even if you can’t always see it.
The results will also be welcome following a drove of headlines around RELX’ stock price plunging in the aftermath of Anthropic launching its own legal tool. “The indicator we need to worry about is customer satisfaction, not the stock price,” says Fitzpatrick. “We are focusing on creating great products for customers, and this is the fastest growing product in the history of the company. We’re seeing an increase in growth and profit margins. Stock prices are based on the present value of future cashflow and everything we’re doing will translate to a good stock price.”
The stock market plunge led to a vast number of conversations around the durability of LexisNexis data moat and a focus on its partnerships with Anthropic and Harvey, which were two of the developments in the year to cause perhaps the most headlines. How have they impacted on financial performance?
Fitzpatrick says: “We’ve been working with Anthropic since the beginning, in fact I think the first invoice they issued was to LexisNexis. We have a special relationship and we get access to their models and engineers so that we can use their technology in our products and get the legal skills they are building. We can take those skills and rebuild them in Protégé, grounded in our authoritative content. If you just use those skills from Anthropic, you will just be getting the information from their LLM with a cut off date, and it’s way more powerful in our system.”
With regard to Harvey, Fitzpatrick says: “We have a Harvey agreement and we also for that matter have a Luminance agreement. They are licensing not our content but our AI technology. If you are a Luminance Lumi customer, you can go to Lumi and ask a legal research question that will be encrypted and sent to Protégé, then answered back in Lumi, so that the attorney can see it, but Lumi can’t because it’s encrypted.
“We want customers to have access to our content wherever they may be.”
With so much market focus on legal tech companies that are borrowing (and spending) VC money hand over fist, it is no surprise that LexisNexis is shouting about its financial position today.
Paul Abrahams, chief communications officer of RELX told Legal IT Insider: “RELX generated $3bn of cashflow after we invested capex in new product and after a spend of $2.5bn in IT. This is a hugely profitable organisation able to fund itself without debt or equity markets and without relying on incredibly fickle VC investors.”
