Drafting automation provider Clarilis has hired respected former UK top 50 law firm partner turned consultant Richard Haywood as its chairman, as the private equity-backed, UK-headquartered firm looks to refine its strategy and scale its offering.
Haywood, who is currently a consultant at RPC, was a corporate partner at Wragge & Co (now Gowling WLG) for 25 years and served as managing partner of the firm. He joined RPC as a partner in 2013 and was a non-executive director of CloserStill Group Limited prior to a successful exit for Inflexion Private Equity and NVM Private Equity – NVM invested in Clarilis in 2018.
Co-founded by James and Kevin Quinn, Clarilis launched its solution in 2015 and has quickly established itself as a leading platform in automated document drafting for the legal community – it combines automation capability with an in-house team that helps to keep projects on track (lack of resource is often cited to us as one of the biggest reasons that automation projects fail). Clarilis customers include firms such as Addleshaw Goddard, Baker McKenzie, Burness Paull, Gateley, National Grid and Travers Smith.
NVM in June 2018 invested £3.1m of growth capital in Clarilis to help the company capitalise on high demand for its services.
Haywood said: “I first came across Clarilis when RPC became an early customer. I was very impressed. The business combines a proprietary technology platform with an internal team of experienced lawyers and automation staff. This not only provides customers with the software, but also with the help they need to implement it. Too many software initiatives fail for want of this support. Private practice law firms and in-house legal teams are under increasing pressure to be innovative and efficient. Clarilis can help them meet those demands. I am really looking forward to working with the team.”
James Quinn told us:
– Richard will be working closely with the board here as non-executive chairman. He is not full-time but expects to be fully involved / hands-on in our development.
– His role is to guide the board, particularly in relation to:
strategy, we need to ensure that we stay as close as possible to the requirements of our law firm and in-house counsel clients, if we continue to get that right, everything else will follow;
scale, Richard has enormous experience of growth companies – whilst maintaining quality (Wragges is a great example of this)
Quinn added: “He also has endless energy and enthusiasm for what we are doing, much like Tim Levett our investor director (and vice chair of the Venture Capital Trust Association).”
