The Law Society’s executive director of business development, Simon Drane has left the organisation and set up his own consultancy, with the plan to advise startups, established tech companies, professional services organisations and investors on the creation of product strategies that drive commercial growth.
Earlsferry Advisory will be working with technology businesses at varying stages of their evolution and professional services firms as they engage more in providing productised services for their clients, as well as helping those investing in technology businesses to make the right choices.
Speaking to Legal IT Insider, Drane, who was latterly on the executive board of the Law Society running the commercial arm and was responsible for its relationships with Legal Geek, Seedrs and Barclays Eagle Lab, said: “A lot of what I did at The Law Society involved working with investment boards and at LexisNexis I did a lot of their product strategy, which I loved.”
He added: “There’s a proliferation of legal technology and I’m trying to help organisations with their commercial product strategy, which is what I’ve done on the boards of the various businesses I’ve worked for.”
With regard to helping professional services firms – which are not just limited to law firms – to productise their offerings, Drane said: “They are a services business and don’t necessarily know how to get a product to market. It’s easy to get people to look at a product but getting adoption is harder and that’s not what professional services firms do as a day job.”
Drane previously led commercial product strategy at LexisNexis, launching many of their offerings around areas like document automation and workflow.