Robert Ambrogi Blog
The motto of law practice management company Clio is to “transform the legal experience for all.” But for many of its 17 years in business, that “all” has focused primarily on smaller law firms and their clients. Last year, Clio expanded that “all” to include mid-sized firms, and, in the wake of its record-setting $900 million raise last July, it further accelerated its growth in that sector of the market.
Now, it is taking that “all” all the way to the top of the market and planting its flag in Big Law land by acquiring ShareDo, a U.K. company that provides cloud-based enterprise case and matter management software for large law firms. Founded in 2011, ShareDo’s customers include some of the largest law firms in the U.K. and a growing number of firms in the United States, Canada and Australia.
According to ShareDo’s website, law firms it counts as customers include DLA Piper, DWF, Herbert Smith Freehills, Linklaters, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Slater + Gordon, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, and several others. It has over 40 large law customers in total, serving some 13,000 legal professionals, according to Clio.
“Clio is doubling down on its mission to transform the legal experience for all, with a focus on delivering advanced, flexible, and secure technology for large law firms now, and in the future,” it said in a press release.
Jack Newton, Clio’s founder and CEO, said: “We’ve spent years expanding upmarket, transforming how law firms operate across countries, practice areas, and sizes. But this is about more than segments; we’re driving a fundamental shift in how the entire legal industry operates. The large law firm market is on the brink of a major shift, and this acquisition cements our role in leading that change.”
Related: Exclusive LawNext Interview: CEO Jack Newton on Clio’s Record-Setting $900M Raise.
All of ShareDo’s roughly 70 employees will remain with the company. Benjamin Nicholson, its founder and CEO, will take the position of general manager, ShareDo. In addition, Clio said it intends to add a significant number of people to the ShareDo team over the coming year.
Clio declined to disclose the terms of the deal.
A Very Different Acquisition
In a post I wrote last year examining the landscape of law practice management software for smaller firms, I described Clio as the 800-pound gorilla in that space. Yet, for all its growth and investment, it has been relatively conservative in its acquisitions, making only three prior to today: its 2018 acquisition of CRM platform Lexicata, which became the foundation of its Clio Grow product; its 2021 acquisition of court calendaring company CalendarRules, which is now built into Clio Manage; and its 2021 acquisition of document automation company Lawyaw, which was rebranded earlier this year as Clio Draft.
But this acquisition of ShareDo appears to be of a much-different nature in two notable ways. For one, while those other acquisitions all targeted the same small-firm market that Clio was already in, ShareDo serves what is virtually an entirely new market for Clio. (Don’t quote me on this, but my recollection is that some specific practice groups within large firms have been Clio customers.)
For another, while those other acquisitions all involved products with the potential to be integrated into Clio’s existing practice management software, ShareDo appears not to be a candidate for any such integration and rather is better left as a freestanding product.
A Distinct Product
In a briefing ahead of today’s announcement, Ronnie Gurion, Clio’s chief operating officer, confirmed that ShareDo would remain a distinct product.
“I think that’s accurate,” he said, explaining that enterprise law firms prefer to buy best-of-breed point solutions over the kinds of all-in-one solutions that smaller and mid-sized firms prefer.
“As you go to the Am Law [firms] and the really large end of the spectrum, it’s a very different proposition,” he said. “It’s either practice area specific or it’s best of breed.”
Gurion said that ShareDo excels at integrating with many of the other platforms used by enterprise law firms, such as NetDocuments, iManage, Aderant and Elite.
“They work alongside with and help amplify the overall tech stack for these law firms. So that’s why we got comfortable with it being different than in the past where it was more integrated into the Clio ecosystem.”
At the same time, Gurion said, Clio believes there are opportunities to take some of its existing capabilities — such as its payments technology and its Clio Duo AI technology — and weave them into ShareDo to further accelerate ShareDo’s capabilities.
Market Opportunities
I asked Gurion why Clio considers it important to expand into the large law firm market.
“Our mission is to transform the legal experience for all and I think we’ve done a great job of working towards that mission,” he said. “It’s hard to do that without servicing all types of law firms, especially the largest, most scaled law firms. So it is very much in line with our mission.”
There is also a strong business case, he noted. While the large law sector represents a smaller overall portion of seats compared to small law, it commands a disproportionately high amount of revenue and spend.
“From a business opportunity and expansion opportunity perspective, we see that as an area that can really help further Clio’s long-term business and financial objectives as well.”
Beyond the business case, Gurion believes the large-firm market is underserved by existing products.
“There’s been a dearth of true cloud modern solutions that are built with a great UI and great customer experience and great flexibility for the enterprise market,” he said. “We think ShareDo is one of the few companies we’ve come across that does that.
“There’s an opportunity to really serve that market and those customers in a great way, as we’re seeing in the U.K., and with our capabilities bring that to the world’s largest legal market and others more rapidly.”
Given that Clio is a company that helped blaze the trail for small law firms to move to the cloud, Gurion acknowledged that the large-firm market has been slower to make that transition.
While that may be partly attributable to simple resistance, Gurion believes it is more because no one has offered them the right combination of technology and support. As evidence of that, he said that, even though Clio’s core platform is not built for that market, it nevertheless receives a lot of inbound interest and leads from that segment.
“I think that speaks to the interest and what people are looking for,” he said. “They’re eager … and I think they will move to the cloud in large degree as the right solutions manifest themselves, which is what we think this [acquisition] can help us accelerate.”
Implications for Existing Customers
I asked Gurion if this deal has any trickle-down benefit for Clio’s existing customers. He said that just as there are capabilities in Clio’s platform that could enhance ShareDo’s platform, the reverse is also true.
In addition, the acquisition provides an avenue for firms as they grow larger to move from one platform to the other. “We have well over 1,000 mid-market firms on our platform and a lot of them are very fast growers.”
Another facet of the deal is the new partnership opportunities it opens for Clio. Clio is already know for its wide network of integration partners. While ShareDo already has integration partnerships with many of the same companies, it also has partnerships with companies that are not currently part of Clio’s ecosystem.
“We’ll be looking to leverage those and also create additional ones as well, so I think it’ll create some really good downstream revenue and services opportunities for a number of leading legal services companies,” Gurion said.
ShareDo CEO Nicholson, in a statement provided by the company, said that the acquisition “is a powerful validation of our business and the significant opportunities for market and product expansion ahead.
“I am immensely proud of what we have accomplished at ShareDo as a team and couldn’t be more excited to partner with such a customer-obsessed company like Clio. With the backing of such a dynamic global company, we are ready to begin this next chapter in the UK and beyond.”