In this week's Law Firm Disrupted, we publish Elevate Services Inc.'s one-page business strategy. Don't sleep on it!

I'm Roy Strom, the author of this weekly Law.com briefing on the changing legal services market. You can reach me here or sign up to receive this newsletter here.

 

 

A Peek at Elevate's Business Model

Last week, I arrived at ALM's Legalweek conference in New York about an hour and a half before I was scheduled to moderate a panel. As I walked into the room, there was another panel discussion already underway, so I slid into a seat in the back. l

Someone in the crowd up front began asking a question of the panelists. The man to my right was interested. He craned his neck above the row of seats in front of him and whispered, pretty much to himself, “Is that Liam?”

Yes, it was Liam. Liam Brown, the founder and chairman of Elevate Services, was asking a question. I don't remember the question, but I remember thinking this was as close as I'd come to seeing someone in the alternative legal services market get the celebrity treatment.

Since people are interested in hearing what he has to say, I spoke with Brown this week about Elevate's business model. More specifically, we spoke about the company's recent surge in acquisitions. In the past five months alone it has purchased five companies. They range from a stateside AI technology and consulting business to a flexible lawyer staffing company in the U.K.

The story I wrote for The American Lawyer takes a look at those companies and what they mean for Elevate's goal of creating a multidisciplinary legal company.

Brown also shared with me a one page outline of the company's business strategy, which I write about in that story, but I will publish here.

One quick note: It is very detailed (click here to open in a new window), but it is also a bit dated. It was made in 2016. Brown says most of the broad outlines are still the same, but some of the language he uses to describe the strategy has changed. For the most part, it's what he's trying to do at Elevate.

 

 

Brown said he hopes that law firm lawyers who see this plan will see that Elevate thinks of itself as a partner to law firms.

“I know they worry about these law companies, but I'm a believer that the market improves because there is diversity of players and solutions,” Brown said. “And that competition is healthy.”

As for what his “new law” competitors might gain from seeing this plan, he said most of them are, or should be, well aware of what Elevate is trying to do. I, for one, applaud that kind of transparency.

Are there lessons to be learned from Elevate's model? I'd love to hear your views and thoughts on it. You know where to reach me!

Roy's Reading Corner

On New Business Models: I wrote this week about a new automated offering from Wilson Sonsini that features a familiar name to long-time Law Firm Disrupted readers: Kimball Parker. We heard about Parker way back last year when he was building out an automation tool for the GDPR at his Salt Lake City-based firm, Parsons, Behle & Latimer. He's now doing something similar for Wilson Sonsini with regards to a GDPR-like law that will go into effect in California in 2020. He says he hopes to expand the firm's automated offerings beyond that.

That reminded me of something he said last year: “You just get the feeling like there is this well of things that could be automated,” Parker said. “There's just no bottom to it.”

On Legal Analytics: The Financial Times this week published a long feature articleon the growing number of technology firms that are providing data about court outcomes. If you've been reading The Law Firm Disrupted for a while, you are probably familiar with the idea behind the likes of Ravel Law, Lex Machina, and the others. But the story is still worth a read, as it touches on some of the potential ramifications a data-driven court system.

On the Big Four: KPMG had a big year, with revenue up 30 percent. From what? Tell me if you know their actual revenue figure.

On Legal Tech Startups: A New York-based contract management platform called Outlaw Inc. announced they'd received $2 million in a venture financing round this week. I spoke with the company's co-founders, Evan Schneyer and Dan Dalzotto, about their efforts to sell their software, which they say is designed to make contracting faster. I thought Schneyer's comments were an appropriate way to sum up what can feel like a disconnect between law firms and clients.

“There is a big dividing line between whether we're talking to in-house lawyers or law firms. In-house lawyers pretty much love it from the start and they're very in-line with their business counterparts,” Schneyer said. “Law firms can be somewhat hit or miss. Sometimes you can see that internal conflict of interest they have, where they realize this will save me time and tedium. And then you can almost see the dollar signs going down in their eyes when they realize this might decrease my billable hours.”

Schneyer and Dalzotto are not deterred, however. Schneyer said he expects to sign up an Am Law 100 law firm “who will almost take a stand and say, 'This is better. It changes the process for the better for us and our clients. And it might cut down on the boring billable hours, but it helps us … do more of that high value legal work for them.” Good luck, guys!

That's it for this week! Thanks again for reading, and please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]. Sign up here to receive The Law Firm Disrupted as a weekly email.