mergers and acquisitions

A single piece of litigation consists of many components—discovery, of course, but also pretrial witness statements, depositions and pleadings, along with post-trial cleanup and categorization for future cases. Many technologies have emerged to aid with each part of the case, but legal service provider Integreon Inc. is looking to integrate these disparate parts into one system.

On Nov. 28, Integreon announced that it is acquiring litigation management software company Allegory Inc., in a deal that also brings on board Allegory's development team and company founder Alma Asay. The company's software, which automates and provides insight into everyday litigation activities, will be included in Integreon's product mix that it offers both law firm and in-house legal customers. Financial details for the deal were not announced.

The inclusion of Allegory, Integreon CEO Bob Rowe told Legaltech News before the deal's announcement, allows the company to be what it deems a “true end-to-end solution.” In many cases, he said, legal teams hold keys to litigation in a number of different places, including e-discovery software, document management systems, and shared drives. These keys also extend beyond normal discovery documents, and can include court orders, pleadings and depositions.

“When I say it's true end-to-end, that's what I mean,” Rowe said. “We have one platform that contains all the evidence, and allows a legal team to manage its litigations without having to go on all these different platforms.”

Allegory looks to be an important part of this strategy moving forward. Asay will be joining the company with the new title of chief innovation officer, legal solutions. Her goal, she told Legaltech News, is to not only build out the Allegory solution, but to take her experiences and skills and apply them to other Integreon services as well.

“I'm really excited, because I get to focus on all the things I loved in building Allegory—working with our clients, meeting with them one-on-one to make sure that we are hitting the nail on the head with respect to their needs,” Asay explained.

And those needs can be expansive. Asay, who before founding Allegory in 2012 was an attorney at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, said that “it was really frustrating to me that everyone in litigation technology would focus on e-discovery. They would say that they're end-to-end, and literally, their end was production. But that was just the middle of what I was doing with my team.”

In many cases, her team resorted to tools best built for other purposes, such as Excel or shared drives. “It's amazing that that's what people are using, that or hard copies,” she explained. “Whether it's materials on a desk or a desktop, it's really an old way of managing information in an era where the amount of information is getting bigger and bigger.”

Moving forward, Asay believes partnering with Integreon is the best way to change that paradigm. She pointed to Integreon's pre-existing resources, both monetary and skills-based, as helpful for Allegory to grow its software.

“We're not starting from scratch, trying to hire people, and we can get a jump on all of these things that our clients have been excited about us doing,” Asay said.

Rowe concurred, noting that talks between Integreon and Allegory originally began as a licensing agreement, but quickly morphed into an acquisition opportunity. “It didn't take long, since we've known each other for years, and since we knew that the strategy and the fit would be good,” he explained.

This likely will not be the last expansion for Integreon, either. Rowe said the company has been focused on implementing new technologies to marry technology and human capital for legal services delivery. Notably, the company entered into a partnership with Kira Systems to introduce artificial intelligence technology into its workflow in October. And he explained that more M&A is likely moving forward.

“We're very bullish about what we're doing and how we're approaching it,” Rowe said. “Before we say, 'Oh, let's just add another delivery center and another 150 resources,' let's see if there's a different way to do in the industry.”

Those ways to perform actions will continue to proliferate. Rowe said that in his talks with customers, each one expected to be innovators and understand these new technologies. This means keeping up with the many startups entering the legal technology market.

“Somebody needs to be vetting, understanding and pushing the envelope,” he noted.

But, as Asay said, the integration of people and processes to that technology is key, and change management is the area where Integreon believes it has an edge. “As I've learned over time, you really can't throw new technology at people,” she explained. “You have to develop processes and offer services around how that technology will be adopted.”