ALBANY — Matthew Bender, an Albany business icon for more than a century and one of the nation's largest publishers of law books, is closing its doors.

The company's owner, LexisNexis, will start layoffs from its 1275 Broadway office starting in mid-April and eventually shutter the location by the end of 2014, eliminating 220 jobs, according to a noticed filed Tuesday with the state Labor Department.

Employees got the news Tuesday afternoon about the office being closed, said Marc Osborn, a spokesman for LexisNexis. He said some employees could be relocated "on a case-by-case basis" to Matthew Bender's other locations in New York City and Dayton, Ohio.

Individual employees will be given a 90-day notice, as required by law, before their jobs are eliminated, said Osborn. He said the Matthew Bender line of content, which includes numerous legal and reference titles, will continue to be offered to customers.

Asked about the rationale behind the closing of the office in Albany, where the company was founded in 1887, Osborn said LexisNexis was "always looking for ways of running more efficiently."

LexisNexis, an affiliate of Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier, purchased Matthew Bender Co. in 1998 from the Times Mirror Co., owner of the Los Angeles Times. At that time, the Albany office had about 400 workers, and LexisNexis brought the company into the online age.

Matthew Bender has long been a centerpiece of the Capital Region's business and philanthropic community. Matthew Bender IV, great-grandson of the founder, and his wife, Phoebe, are financial supporters of various educational, cultural and historic causes in the Capital Region and beyond.

He has served on the boards of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center and The Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region, is chairman of the State Commission on the Restoration of the Capitol, and is a trustee of the Preservation League of New York State.

The Bender company was sold to the Times Mirror Co. in 1963, and none of the family were involved in the business after the sale. Matthew Bender IV later became vice president of Clark Boardman Co., a New York City-based law book publisher.

When the company celebrated its 100th anniversary at a black-tie gala at the Lake House in Albany's Washington Park in 1987, the chief judge of the state Court of Appeals, Sol Wachtler, was the keynote speaker.

He credited the company's legal books with helping make him a successful lawyer.

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