A true veteran of the legal technology sector, David Thorpe has this week joined slicedbread as sharedo business development director in a major hire for the adaptive case and matter management provider.
Thorpe, who will be based in slicedbread’s new London office, was sales director at Peppermint Technology for four years until March 2016, helping to take the cloud-based practice and case management provider from a startup to the point where it received over £10m in private equity investment in December 2015. A short, three-month stint as UK business development director of mobile app company Bottle Rocket between March and June was enough to convince him that legal is where it’s at.
Thorpe’s potted legal tech pedigree includes EMEA general manager for Thomson Reuters Elite, where he spent 11 years between 1993 and July 2005. He was briefly group sales director at Tikit in 2005, before becoming sales and marketing director at Pilgrim Systems, (which was eventually acquired by Elite.) Before joining Peppermint in 2012, Thorpe spent three years at Aderant working as general manager EMEA.
He told Legal IT Insider: “Slicedbread is similar in some respects to Peppermint at the beginning; small, exciting and privately-owned, and with a very innovative and disruptive product.”
However, slicedbread’s target market is more on a par with Aderant and Elite and he added: “This is my first week but already I’ve seen enough to know that they can become the de facto case/matter management solution for that high end of the market and the culture and the company are perfect for me.”
At slicedbread, Thorpe – whose hashtag is @Legal_Thorpedo – is responsible for all of sharedo’s global business development activities, including delivery of its sales, commercial and customer strategy.
His hire follows the arrival in May of Hitachi’s former technology solutions director Stuart McLatchie as slicedbread’s new solution delivery director, who is also building a City-based team to continue sharedo’s growth plans.
While at Hitachi, McLatchie had responsibility for delivery management for major law firms and corporates such as Allen & Overy, DAC Beachcroft, Jardine Lloyd Thomson, Rabobank, Experian Footfall, Domino’s Pizza and Public Health England.
Thorpe said: “As technology continues to evolve, law firms have a great opportunity to use this as an advantage in an increasingly competitive market. Clients want great service but for lower fees. Law firms want to accommodate client requirements whilst maintaining profits. Technology can bridge these two seemingly conflicting objectives.”