Litera Buys Invoicing Company Lynch Marks in 14th M&A Deal

Litera, the ever-growing legal tech conglomerate backed by Hg Capital, has bought Lynch Marks, a US-based invoice management company that created the PS/Ship software. This is now the group’s 14th M&A deal in recent times and follows the purchase of Kira Systems and Concep last year.

While perhaps not the largest deal of the century, given that the Berkley, California-based Lynch Marks and its PS/Ship software offering only employs about 15 or so people, Haley Altman, Global Director of Corporate Development at Litera, explained to Artificial Lawyer that it is an important add-on for the company and is the first business of this type to join their platform.

‘We are always looking at companies solving problems within law firms. Managing invoice and shipping workflows across offices and regions can be painful and inefficient. The PS/Ship team has built a great business serving large law firm customers with great response.

‘They have a 96 Net Promoter Score with customers, which is almost unheard of in tech. Their new Invoice Plus product helps increase profitability by managing multi-line invoices that don’t often get associated with a matter in time to collect, which means the firm is out the money,’ she said.

This site then asked: does the data generated from this product help with the KM effort that Litera is now very focused on; and what part of the business will it be integrated into, e.g. firm intelligence?

‘We are excited to build on Lynch Marks’ ability to link front-office functions and back-office processes, making invoice processing, shipping and inbound package tracking faster, easier, and less expensive for Litera’s global customers. The information around disbursements that can be tracked with Invoice Plus helps give a more complete view of a matter for KM, including necessary filings. For now, Lynch Marks will continue to operate as a standalone business until the second half of 2022 under the leadership of Nick Adams, General Manager,’ Altman replied.

In terms of what PS/Ship does: ‘it can streamline shipping and invoice workflow management across the business, reducing total shipping costs by 30%. They can ship and manage packages and invoices directly from the desktop, whether working in the office or remotely, and properly allocate these costs to the appropriate matter or cost centre for efficient recovery and precise profitability measurement’.

Also, their new Invoice Plus product launched in 2021 ‘automates invoice processing for other multi-line, multi-disbursement invoices like patent filings, legal research, attorney services, e-discovery billings and more – increasing cost recovery while substantially decreasing processing time’.

To conclude, Peter Marks, exiting Founder of Lynch Marks, added: ‘Litera is a great home for our customers, products, and employees. Their commitment to customer success, great technology, and serving the legal community made them an obvious choice. I’m excited to see the next chapter unfold.’