Mehta says he’s excited to collaborate with law firms and corporate teams commenting: “Whether it’s in-house or the law firms that support them, they will go back to having a business advisory role and be the Michelin chefs and we will take those great ideas to the masses.”
Axiom’s rebranded managed legal services spin off Factor is evaluating around 100 third party tools to assess what its core tech stack will be going forward in what appears to be a move away from building its own in-house solutions to creating a best of breed platform.
Speaking to Legal IT Insider, Factor’s new CEO Varun Mehta said the company is looking to partner with a handful of vendors as it moves to drive corporate efficiency in the contract management space.
“The goal is largely to evaluate the best technology in the market, implement parts of those solutions and build connections so solutions talk to one another. Most of these platforms do a few things really well and we want to combine best of breed and provide front-end visual reporting that shows where a contract sits,” Mehta said. He added: “Dominos has a simple pizza tracker and we are working on building that for legal.”
Mehta, a founding member and VP of Clutch Group turned investor, says: “A Clutch we took data and turned it into production and outcomes and that’s what we’re here to do. We can drive efficiency in the contract business not just through technology and process but also by delivering outcomes and expertise. If you are a private equity firm, for example, we can help you speed up your deals.”
LIBOR repapering is currently one of the huge tasks that is driving the creation of partnerships between tech vendors and LPOs or law firms and Mehta said: “We’re doing that work. Regulatory reform is a core competency of ours, we didn’t enter the market las month.”
Factor, which has 500 staff of which over half are lawyers, is collaborating with law firms in that space although Mehta was reluctant, day one into the role when we spoke, to name names.
What does he think of the growing number of law firm captive low-cost centres? “Competition is great,” he says. “I’m not worried I’m excited to collaborate. Law firms work with more clients than any ALSP. We do think we have an opportunity to partner with the firms that are being innovative. We can take some of their tech and they ours. We are focussed on proving complex legal work at scale and large firms will provide the advisory and trusted partners – if it’s a regulatory change we won’t’ tell them how to define that but will look to the law firm to translate and we will execute against that.
“Whether it’s in-house or the law firms that support them, they will go back to having a business advisory role and the Michelin chefs and we will take those great ideas to the masses.”