Pioneering flexible lawyer service, LOD, has acquired lexvoco, an Australasian legal ops and legal tech solutions provider, in what is another sign of growing consolidation in the NewLaw space.
LOD said it had sought to ‘enhance its capabilities in these areas and saw it as an opportune time to bring lexvoco’s expertise on board’.
LOD will have the lexvoco teams join them in their combined offices of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth whilst adding Adelaide, Geelong, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch to the LOD global network.
In APAC the legal operations and legal technology function of lexvoco will form a new offering called LOD Innovate, which will be headed up by lexvoco Founder and CEO Anthony Wright.
Wright said: ‘LOD has been a force in the global alternative services market for a decade and we are delighted to be a part of their strategic expansion. We’re really impressed by their people and their ambition. This feels like the perfect next step as we truly believe that this new direction will allow us to offer our expertise on a global platform from day one and provide tremendous opportunities for our team.’
In terms of the legal tech skills that the Aussie group brings, they have this to say on their site:
‘We design and build award-winning apps, software and solutions to help in-house lawyers succeed.
The right tech will make your life easier and give your organisation a competitive advantage. Let our experts guide you on your team’s tech journey. Using tech to fix poor processes and documents causes far more problems. Tech should be just one part of your solution.
Our tech solutions combine operational analysis and process improvement with effective use of existing or acquired software. Step one of our projects analyses your current systems and tech “readiness”. Often existing systems are underutilised.
If new tech is needed, we help the in-house legal team build the business case. Then our systems engineers and in-house lawyers design, build and implement.’
Interesting stuff.
What does this all mean?
First, it’s a big geographical boost for LOD, adding in additional firepower. It also brings in legal ops experts and some tech development capability.
LOD is on something of growth spurt at the moment and also widening its tech capabilities. For example, as Artificial Lawyer explored, the company has now formed a partnership with AI company Eigen Technologies for doc review and analysis.
The moves come as other NewLaw players combine, for example Elevate has bought up a series of on demand and other groups around the world. Meanwhile, the Big Four are expanding their offering in terms of process capability, with EY doing two acquisitions recently in the LPO space.
Is this a sign that the NewLaw market is consolidating? Yes, to put it simply. But it also shows that there is a growing opportunity here and that these companies need greater scale and a broader offering (which includes leveraging AI technology) to really compete globally.
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