In its first win in Southeast Asia, ContractPodAi has entered into a commercial relationship with Rajah & Tann, which is one of the largest firms in Singapore with a legal network spread out over 10 countries across Southeast Asia and China, we can reveal.
While ContractPodAi’s clients are almost invariably in-house legal teams, Rajah & Tann Asia is the London-headquartered vendor’s second private practice client. It plans to help its clients transform how they work via ContractPodAi’s technology, which include third party document review and contract lifecycle management.
Interestingly, ContractPodAi’s other law firm client is leading Scottish firm Shepherd and Wedderburn.
As part of their offering it is understood that Rajah & Tann will be offering clients a white label service.
ContractPod’s platform, which is underpinned by IBM Watson, takes care of the entire contracting process, from contract generation to negotiation and signature.
Rajesh Sreenivasan, a director at Rajah & Tann Technologies who also serves as Rajah & Tann Asia’s technology advisor & partner, said: “Our clients are operating in an increasingly regulated environment and are under pressure to control costs at the same time. As they innovate and use new technologies to fuel their businesses, it’s critical for us, as service providers, to be equipped with “best in class” tech to achieve their business goals. We see the ContractPodAi platform as being the most suitable contract lifecycle management platform at this point in time.”
He added: “Our clients don’t need technology for technology’s sake but the right tool for the job, which is easy to implement, particularly in these times of enhanced scrutiny and regulatory pressure.”
“We appreciate the growing strategic role for legal departments in taking the helm of the organisation. They need to add value to the business and innovative legal networks like Rajah & Tann Asia recognise this,” said Sarvarth Misra, founder and CEO of ContractPodAi.
The Singapore win comes as the local government heavily back legal tech development: at the start of May a raft of vendors including Litera Microsystems, Thomson Reuters Contract Express and Relativity were selected as preapproved vendors in a $3.68m Tech-celerate programme under which a law firms can receive funding of up to 70% on the first year cost of adopting legal technology solutions.