Neota Launches ‘Client Advisory Boards’, Shearman, Dentons + NRF Join

Neota Logic, the legal expert systems and workflow automation pioneers, have announced a new initiative that could help with both improved product development and increased client connections, in the shape of Client Advisory Boards.

It’s an interesting strategy and has seen professionals from major firms, including Dentons, Shearman & Sterling and Norton Rose Fulbright join the first one that covers North America. Two more, covering EMEA and APAC, will also be formed in the near future.

The boards will meet in person quarterly to give feedback on the development of Neota’s products, the overall customer experience and also share strategic market opportunities – with this latter aspect appearing to be a way of gathering business development ideas.

No doubt the hope is that as well as providing some useful feedback at regular intervals it will create a more closely connected user community, which in turn perhaps will drive broader use of their platform.

In a statement to Artificial Lawyer, Neota said: ‘Neota Logic believes in putting their clients at the heart of their product design thinking.’

Members of the US and Canada board are all active Neota clients and include:

  • Meredith Williams-Range, Chief Knowledge and Client Value Officer at Shearman & Sterling
  • Kathy Valentine, Director of Knowledge & Practice Innovation at Dentons
  • Jeff Marple, Director of Innovation, Corporate Legal at Liberty Mutual
  • Sukesh Kamra, National Director, Knowledge Management at Norton Rose Fulbright.

Commenting on the initiative, Kim Massana, CEO at Neota, said: ‘At Neota Logic our customer-led approach is central to our ethos. We are working hard to bring regular customer feedback into the flow of our product development and direction of the business as a whole.’

‘As we scale-up, the pace of innovation in our platform will continue to increase, so we need to make sure that we capture all the customer feedback that we can so that the platform is able to grow and support our growing customer base,’ he added.

Is this a big deal? Many businesses in the broader economy have feedback and/or advisory groups such as this. However, the formal creation of such boards looks to be an interesting move for Neota, not the least because the people involved are direct clients and their views will matter.

Inviting feedback from a formally constituted group can also cut both ways, i.e. you can get a lot of positive feedback, but also some negatives, which any company then has to be seen to respond to if it wants to keep the board happy. Many law firms for example often collect client feedback, but most keep the process at arm’s length.

Overall then, it’s a sign of a commitment to good client relationships and taking their feedback seriously. They also may uncover some previously unnoticed business opportunities that help Neota to grow. Will be interesting to see how this evolves.

P.S. Does your legal tech company have a formally constituted client feedback group like this? Interested to hear what benefits it has brought if you have one.