Slaughters, Five US Firms Are Latest to Back Legal Tech Startup Reynen Court
A startup that wants to transform how law firms select and deploy technology now counts four Magic Circle firms and a raft of elite U.S. firms as supporters.
April 01, 2019 at 12:54 PM
4 minute read
Slaughter and May has joined with five major U.S. firms to help to develop and launch Reynen Court, a U.S. legal tech platform financially backed by Clifford Chance and Latham & Watkins.
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Davis Polk & Wardwell, Debevoise & Plimpton, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Weil, Gotshal & Manges are the latest U.S. additions to the Reynen Court "consortium" of supporting law firms, which now numbers 18 firms in total.
Reynen Court's aim is to provide law firms with a single platform to install, use and manage the abundance of legal tech products available to firms from various vendors – similar in theory to creating an 'app store' for legal tech.
Founder and CEO Andrew Klein, a former Cravath, Swaine & Moore associate, said he was "thrilled" to have Slaughter and May as part of the consortium. He added that the company has been in talks with Slaughters since the first round of law firms to sign up were announced last October.
"It's a firm I know well. I spent my early years at Cravath, who have a long history of friendship and collaboration with Slaughters," Klein said.
A first version of the platform is due to launch between July and September this year, according to Klein.
To become a member of the consortium, he said firms must sign a participation agreement requiring them to help the company understand the firm's current challenges with third-party legal tech vendors; to agree to launch the platform and use it in a real environment; to help the company connect with legal tech vendors who they value; and to allow Reynen Court to reference the firm's name and describe their participation in marketing the company.
Clifford Chance and Latham & Watkins, which co-invested in Reynen Court's $10 million Series-A round last December and feature on the company's board, are set to be the first to adopt the new platform, along with two other consortium firms that Klein declined to name. The company will then continue to integrate the other firms onto the platform.
Klein said the company's "challenge" now is to "stabilise the [law firms] we've committed to", with no additional firms likely to join before the launch.
Reynen Court now counts four of the five Magic Circle firms as consortium members, with the exception of Allen & Overy.
Klein said: "We had a nice meeting or two with Allen & Overy at their innovation lab. I think they're doing terrific work and hopefully we get the chance to work with them in the future. At first pass they've chosen not to participate in the collaboration, but we welcome them now and in the future."
Klein said in a statement that the new consortium firms will help "define" the requirements of the platform and help set the standards for app vendors intending to use it.
The company says the platform will make it "fast, easy and secure" for law firms to deploy legal tech, without needing to "expose firm or client content" to third-party legal tech vendors.
Reynen Court also intends to make various legal tech products "interoperable" – a benefit that Clifford Chance chief information officer Paul Greenwood highlighted after the firm backed the company.
With the latest additions, the current consortium members are:
- Clifford Chance
- Covington & Burling
- Cravath, Swaine & Moore
- Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
- Davis Polk & Wardwell
- Debevoise & Plimpton
- Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
- Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
- Linklaters
- Latham & Watkins
- Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe
- Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
- Ropes & Gray
- Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom
- Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
- Slaughter and May
- Weil, Gotshal & Manges
- White & Case
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