Robert Ambrogi Blog
Legal technology company SurePoint Technologies has acquired the legal practice management company ZenCase in a strategic move aimed at enhancing SurePoint’s practice management offerings for mid-sized law firms.
The deal, announced today, builds on SurePoint’s acquisition last year of the legal business intelligence and analytics company Leopard Solutions, and paves the way for SurePoint to combine ZenCase’s attorney-focused platform on the front end with SurePoint’s back-office and financial management solutions and Leopard’s market data.
That combination, SurePoint says, will enable it to create a unified, comprehensive legal practice management platform for mid-sized law firms capable of addressing talent management, financial management, and business intelligence.
“With the acquisition of ZenCase, SurePoint is uniquely positioned to completely redefine practice management, empowering law firms to seamlessly solve problems that were once inconceivable,” said Eric Thurston, SurePoint’s CEO. “Our combined portfolio delivers a unified platform ushering in the next generation of legal technology.
“Firms that embrace these tools will gain a single partner capable of helping them navigate the demands of an evolving market and position themselves for long-term success in an increasingly competitive legal landscape.”
Company Backgrounds
Founded in 1982 as Rippe & Kingston Systems to provide legal and financial management software to law firms, SurePoint rebranded in 2020 to better align its name with its commitment to provide law firms with modern enterprise solutions. In 2021, the private investment firm Aquiline Capital Partners took a majority stake in SurePoint.
In addition to its acquisition last year of Leopard, in 2022, SurePoint acquired Cole Valley Software, developer of the CRM software ContactEase, and then acquired Coyote Analytics, a company that provided financial management and business intelligence software for law firms. Thurston, a veteran business-transformation leader, became the company’s CEO in 2023.
ZenCase, founded by attorneys, is a modern, web-based practice management system designed to simplify workflows, centralize information, and optimize task management for lawyers. Its key features include automated time tracking, knowledge management, document automation, and task blueprints.
This latest acquisition, SurePoint says, will enable it to offer law firms an end-to-end platform that better addresses both front- and back-office needs.
Immediate Access to Market Data
While the plan is eventually to integrate ZenCase, SurePoint and Leopard as a rebranded suite of solutions within a single platform, the company has not set a firm timeline for the integration. Until then, ZenCase will remain mostly unchanged as a standalone product and maintain its own branding.
However, one immediate benefit to ZenCase customers, already live in the product, is integration within the ZenCase platform of law firm and market data from Leopard. ZenCase customers now receive complimentary access to four of Leopard’s core reports: its Benchmarking Report, Current Market Report, Current Firm Report, and its Competitor Match Tool.
TJ Fraser, the Florida trial lawyer who founded ZenCase and was its CEO, will remain with the company as general manager. Olivia Mockel, who was president and COO of ZenCase, has been COO at SurePoint since August. Before joining ZenCase in 2023, Mockel was CEO of PCLaw | Time Matters, a joint venture of LEAP Legal Software and LexisNexis.
“The decision to bring ZenCase into SurePoint’s comprehensive suite of legal tech solutions was an easy one, as it presented an opportunity to create a transformative platform that addresses the toughest challenges law firms face today,” Fraser said in a statement provided by the company. “Together, we are redefining what true practice management can deliver.”
Triad of Key Capabilities
In a briefing this week ahead of the announcement, Charmayne Gien, head of brand, creative and marcom at SurePoint, told me that the ZenCase acquisition closes the loop on SurePoint’s vision of creating an interconnected triad of key capabilities – front-office functionality from ZenCase, financial management from SurePoint’s own technology, and business intelligence from Leopard.
Graphic courtesy of SurePoint.
As these products are further integrated, ZenCase will serve as the front-end cornerstone of SurePoint’s portfolio, the company says, providing lawyers with essential tools such as automated time management, knowledge management, document automation, task templates and workflows.
That front-end platform will be integrated with and backed by SurePoint’s accounting capabilities and Leopard’s market intelligence.
“This integration creates an unparalleled ecosystem that equips firms with the tools needed to tackle critical talent challenges, identify growth opportunities, and harness market intelligence for data-driven decision-making,” the company said.
Jen Lapierre, a communications consultant working with SurePoint, said that the acquisition is about more than just expanding the company’s product lineup. She said it will allow SurePoint to serve as an end-to-end technology partner for firms, helping them “solve things that were inconceivable before” by connecting key business functions.
“Ultimately it’s enabling SurePoint to be a single partner for firms,” she said. “Before they may have needed two, three, four different kinds of best-of-breed solutions to handle all of these different things. But now, under a single roof, they’re able to bring together all of these capabilities to solve their most-pressing challenges.”
With this deal, SurePoint is betting that a combination of front-office ease-of-use, robust financial tools, and AI-powered business intelligence will prove a winning formula for midsized law firms. The key question going forward will be how quickly and seamlessly SurePoint can execute on the vision of a unified platform.