Litify, which calls itself ‘the legal wrapper for Salesforce’ and is built upon the well-known sales and CRM software system, has formed a partnership with Epiq, the multi-focus legal services group. For now, they will work on case management for class action and mass tort litigation – but presumably the relationship could grow in the future to cover other areas.
First, Litify. It was founded in the US in 2016 and has around 200 staff. It offers a broad platform for a range of tasks: from matter management, to CRM, to intake management and handling plaintiff and defence litigation needs. In fact, the company calls itself an ‘all-in-one technology platform built on Salesforce’. Although, in this particular partnership its connection to Salesforce doesn’t appear to be central here.
As for Epiq, although well-known for eDiscovery work, the company handles a wide range of legal needs and incredibly, LinkedIn lists 5,900 staff – the majority based in the US. It says of itself: ‘Clients rely on Epiq to streamline the administration of legal department and business operations, class action and mass tort, regulatory, compliance, restructuring, and bankruptcy matters.’ They also (the last time this site heard) handle the sending of letters with damages cheques to plaintiffs that are part of class actions.
But what will they do together here?
The simple version is that by connecting Litify’s case management and workflow capability – along with the dashboards it provides, with Epiq’s case development and settlement services, customers will get better control and visibility over the mass tort claims they are involved with, which as one can imagine are complex and filled with many parties.
The link up will also provide ‘access to real-time results of medical record retrieval status and reviews, plaintiff fact sheet data, lien data, settlement allocation scoring, and disbursements in their Litify platform’ and without having to manually input data received from Epiq.
So, the link up with Litify makes a lot of sense, and should make managing mass claims a lot easier. It should give a lot of data clarity and drive efficiency in what can be a laborious process.
Sylvius von Saucken, Vice President, Epiq Mass Tort Solutions, commented: ‘We are always working on ways to provide more effective and efficient solutions to help our firms more easily communicate with their clients, so they can spend more time focusing on moving litigations forward.’
Steven Mandel, Chief Strategy Officer, Litify, added: ‘We are excited to launch this critical integration that will simplify a key process for our clients and many others in the industry. We are excited to go beyond the standard features of practice management software to improve workflows, eliminate manual data entry, and ultimately help drive equitable legal outcomes across the industry.’
Is this a big deal? Not massive, but it’s another sign of how legal tech companies are working together to digitize legal processes and create better workflows, as well as make visible more data using digital platforms.
One open question here is whether this digital progression will eventually lead to an impact on Epiq’s massive workforce?
(In fact is Epiq one of the largest employers in the legal tech world outside of the Big Two of TR and LexisNexis? In comparison, Icertis, the CLM company, has around 2,000 staff, Relativity employs around 1,500 people, and ALSP UnitedLex also employs around 2,000 people.)
I.e. if the idea here is to be more digital and to remove friction from what were once paper-based and very cumbersome processes, will that change how Epiq operates as a company? The short answer is that it’s probably too early to tell. But the tension between digitization and large workforces is something that can only grow as the legal world changes, especially at the process work end of the market.