Eversheds’ New Tech Hub Offers Clients: ThoughtRiver, Autologyx + Repstor

International law firm, Eversheds Sutherland, has formally launched a tech portal that will offer clients the software of: legal AI pre-screening company, ThoughtRiver; workflow automation pioneer, Autologyx; and Repstor, the content management system.

The move widens the offering of its Konexo group, which is an ‘alternative legal and compliance services provider’. It’s also another example of the #morethanlaw trend, that is increasingly taking hold among major law firms.

The tech platform is called Konexo Hub and it ‘combines leading technologies to bring the client matter lifecycle into one place’, the firm said.

It will operate as a ‘flexible portal which ….gives in-house legal teams access to leading-edge technology to drive efficiency and quality‘.

While Konexo Hub was soft launched earlier this year, this is now the formal launch, along with the unveiling of which tech companies it will have on offer.

While we already knew about Eversheds’ relationship with ThoughtRiver, the news clearly cements the working partnership – and to some degree expands upon it. The additional two tech companies also provide an interesting mix of solutions now to clients, i.e. automated review of unstructured data, a workflow automation tool, and a content management system. All in all this is quite a powerful, and logical, combination of capabilities on offer for inhouse legal teams to tap into.

All well and good, but why do this? This is what the firm says: ‘Legal teams are facing increasing pressure to do more with less, whilst their workloads grow and become more complex and Konexo’s new Hub is well-placed to empower clients to deliver their services more efficiently, using controlled and measurable tools.’

The portal also includes a range of self-service legal tools, which for example, offer quick responses to common legal queries. 

As noted, this is another example of a law firm offering #morethanlaw. I.e. this is a major firm providing a type of tech re-seller service to its clients, with additional services wrapped around it.

In addition, the firm is offering in parallel legal managed services, i.e. process focused legal/paralegal capabilities, as well as an ‘interim resourcing’ offering, i.e. temp lawyers.

Such a medley of services being provided by a large commercial law firm would have been seen as highly unlikely a couple of decades ago. Today, it is rapidly becoming the new normal, at least in some markets.

Commenting on the launch, Graham Richardson, Partner and Head of Konexo, said: ‘We are very proud to bring Konexo Hub to market. The legal landscape is changing, with in-house legal teams working amid the increased globalisation of law and regulation, while business decision-makers increasingly scrutinise the value they derive from their legal resources more than ever before.

‘Konexo Hub is a key differentiator and will empower inhouse legal teams to have more choice in managing the work they do, and deliver faster and better service provision to their organisations.’