CLOC, the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium, has partnered with Theorem to launch a technology hub and legal tech vendor directory. The move comes as a growing number of other directories are appearing, each with varying approaches.
CLOC is now the ninth major legal organisation to participate in Theorem’s ‘network offering’, which the company describes as ‘a system that empowers organisations to build their own legal tech platform and marketplace’. The CLOC/Theorem offering will be available to both members and non-members of the legal ops group.
There is a lot there, but put simply people can use the Theorem resource initially as a directory that covers multiple categories of legal tech products, then engage with the vendor through the platform to bring that product onboard.
But, there is also a suite of procurement tools, and what it calls ‘the first legal tech Stack Share’ for members to share and collaborate on vendor selection.
Joshua Maley, CEO Theorem, told Artificial Lawyer: ‘We are proud to be working with CLOC. CLOC’s leadership and community are outstanding. We are very impressed by the team’s dedication to ‘run it like a startup’ and I have no doubt that our partnership will improve the platform for the entire ecosystem.
‘Theorem’s goal is simple: fix enterprise sales in legal by helping buyers and sellers transact, fast and fair. We do this by offering an end-to-end feature set, while enabling new markets and achieving scale through partnerships with leading organisations.’
He noted that the system allows users to personalise the platform to their own needs by ‘region or focus, such as by industry, role, or practice group, as well as their current technology tool set’.
There is also an effort to standardise procurement operations and solution vetting by providing integrated tools for analysing software contracts, plus security and compliance positions.
Commenting on the move, Michael Getter, CTO of CLOC, said: ‘Our goal is to leverage an upgraded platform that delivers significantly enhanced services to all stakeholders and helps us offer the greatest benefit to our diverse membership. The Theorem platform has helped us respond quickly to active member discussions about their needs. I am amazed by the initial participation in new features that the legal community has never seen before.’
Below is a short video by Theorem showing how the partnership with CLOC works.
Overall, one could argue that the growth in the use of directories implicitly suggests that there is more demand for legal tech tools. I.e. if people were not more actively seeking for products there would be no need for such resources. It also may show that buyers are more sophisticated now and want to shop around and build a broad understanding of what is on offer. Ultimately it means more information about legal tech products reaching potential buyers, and that’s got to be a good thing. The question now is which directories and procurement platforms will the buyers come to rely upon over the long-term?