Fresh from winning ILTA’s Innovative Solution Provider of the Year, ThreadKM will today (13 September) announce that Damon Goduto has joined the collaboration platform as an investor and vice president of sales and marketing, in a major hire for the still fledgling Atlanta-based company.
Goduto, who has worked in the legal technology sector for over 20 years, co-founded Iris Data Services in 2007 and as vice president of sales led the company to multiple placements on the Inc. 500 List of America’s Fastest Growing Companies. Iris Data Services was acquired by Epiq Systems in 2015 for $134m, when Goduto took on a consulting role.
At ThreadKM, a matter-centric chat platform that incorporates business applications and integrations, Goduto will be responsible for all aspects of revenue generation. He will further build out the sales and marketing organisation for ThreadKM, which in August won Dentons’ Canada offices as a client.
Goduto first met ThreadKM’s CEO Dan Hauck and discussed the idea behind the new platform when Hauck worked at Bryan Cave as a commercial litigation attorney and was an Iris client. Goduto told Legal IT Insider: “I was busy growing Iris and the next thing, a couple of years later, I saw they had signed Dentons – I was super impressed. I saw on LinkedIn that Dan is in Atlanta and so am I, so I reached out to him and that’s how it started.
“I felt this was a great company with a great offering and great fit for me with my background of 20 years in the legal tech space. Everything to date they have achieved with no sales function and Dan taking the lead on sales.”
Since winning the ILTA award and on the back of the Dentons win, business has spiked for ThreadKM, which can be delivered in the cloud or on premise and to all mobile devices. Goduto said: “Our leads coming out of the ILTA award have been with very simply the biggest law firms in the world.”
ThreadKM, which formally launched at ILTA 2015, has been expanding the systems and suppliers it integrates with, which already include most document management systems such as iManage, NetDocument and eDocs. It plans to integrate with kCura’s eDiscovery platform Relativity as well as time and billing and calendar solutions so that it becomes the main communication platform for lawyers and a bridge between different platforms.
Goduto, who joins a team that includes Hauck; CTO Dedrick Duckett; and director of DevOps David Caldwell, says: “We’re 65% of the way there.”
In terms of ThreadKM’s ability to provide law firms with the platform to collaborate with their clients – a potential game changer for legal service delivery – the technology is already there. However, Goduto says: “Different clients have different policies around client interactions and we do need to take things on a firm-by-firm basis to make sure the law firm is comfortable with that level of interaction and communication.
“Having that kind of close communication between lawyers and clients is one of the benefits we’ll be seeing.”
Hauck said of Goduto’s hire: “Damon has a proven track record in the legal technology space, not only for helping companies grow quickly, but also ensuring his customers and their experiences are always at the forefront of any business decisions. We’re ecstatic to have him aboard.”
See also: Dentons furthers the ‘what comes after email’ debate with ThreadKM pilot
And: DLA Piper rolls out “Twitter for Enterprise”