In response to growing client demand RAVN Systems has made its first appointment in the US with the hire of former DocAuto account director Kenneth Block as sales manager, North America to increase its international presence.
Block has held a number of other senior roles within the legal technology sector including at Copitrak, Billback and Thomson Reuters Elite.
DocAuto is one of RAVN’s US partners and Block brings with him a deep understanding of RAVN’s technology, following a number of high profile sales of RAVN’s solutions. In March 2014, DocAuto extended its relationship with RAVN by establishing a resale channel for the RAVN Connect family of enterprise search based solutions, having already established an arrangement to embed RAVN’s monitoring technology, Manage, into DocAuto’s own solution.
It is hoped that Block will be able to take advantage of a network of contacts in North America to help continue the expansion of RAVN’s international client base. RAVN also plans to increase its presence at events hosted in the United States, including ILTACON in 2016.
In November, Berwin Leighton Paisner won ‘best use of technology’ at The British Legal Awards after becoming the first law firm to adopt RAVN’s cognitive computing platform ACE, which is being used within its real estate disputes practice. The top 20 firm earlier this year began using ACE to search Land Registry documents to pick out company names and charges on titles, inserting them into a spreadsheet in order to issue light obstruction notices. ACE – which has been nicknamed Lonald by the BLP real estate team – also crosschecks for duplication and sends queries direct to Companies House when discrepancies are discovered.
Peter Wallqvist, Managing Director at RAVN Systems said: “We are delighted to welcome Ken on board. We have seen significant interest in the United States, especially with the launch of our artificial intelligence offering earlier this year, so it was vital that we increased our presence ensuring our US clients receive the best possible service and support.”