John Briggs West


John Briggs West was an American publisher who founded Westlaw, and West Publishing.

Early life

John Briggs West was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, 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. 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.
He died March 14, 1922, and was buried at the Oakland Cemetery, in Saint Paul.