Wilson Allen has acquired UK-founded software training services business Capensys to help law firms accelerate and improve user adoption and IT change management, we can reveal. Wilson Allen provides consultancy and implementation services to Thomson Reuters Elite, Intapp and Aderant customers, and Capensys’ training will now be available as a modular offering or integrated part of the services provided. The acquisition follows a strategic alliance that was announced in August at ILTA>ON.
Capensys, which was founded in 2008 by Sue Pasfield, provides technology and security training solutions for law firms and corporate legal departments across the US, Canada, the UK and Australia. It is an iManage, NetDocuments, DocsCorp, and Intapp training partner.
Speaking to Legal IT Insider, Pasfield said: “We’ve been in the industry a long time and our team has a strong desire to improve user adoption and how change management is handled. Every time we meet, we think of how to improve training. We’ve come up with a series of training videos on marketing, user adoption, or just in time learning, and we’ve developed training tools to make it more effective. We have really moved training forward.” Capensys helped to establish the Legal Technology Core Competencies Certification Coalition (LTC4), a non-profit group that created and maintains legal technology core competencies that have become the industry standard for law firms.
Pasfield said of the acquisition: “What is great about the Wilson Allen combination is that they have more channels to market. They can replicate what we’re doing and expand it to different clients and applications.” Capensys has around 200 clients and Wilson Allen has around 700.
One of Capensys’ strengths is the network of trainers that it has built up: there are 14 in the core network but another 100 consultants that it can call on.
Pasfield is set to stay during the transition period and told us: “I’m committed to making this work for them.”
She added: “People spend all this money on software and they don’t know how to use it. There is a continual need to make training relevant and get it into people’s minds. We’ve made a lot of training workflow tools so people can make the connection between what they are learning and how to apply it.”
While there has been a focus among legal tech vendors on improving the UI, Pasfield said: “UI does make the job easier but there are so many things in the tool bar and you need to know how to explore the system.”
Capensys has developed an efficiency dashboard which measures the efficiency of training with a ‘before and after’ analytics of calls to the helpdesk and other metrics.
“We exist to help our customers get the greatest benefit from technology investments. Since change management is one of the most important aspects of every technology project, we are increasing our investment in training solutions as a foundational element of our change management offering,” said Norm Mullock, VP Strategy, Wilson Allen. “Capensys has tremendous breadth and depth of software expertise and an established online learning platform that we will build upon to help our customers drive ROI. The company’s training platform, content, methodology, and expertise complements and greatly expands our existing training capacity. This is all the more important as firms deal with the added dimension of remote training.”
Capensys training for Thomson Reuters Elite software will become a modular offering in Wilson Allen’s Elite upgrade projects, and Capensys Intapp training will be available as an extension of Wilson’s Intapp implementations. Aderant software training services are coming soon. These services will be available to any firm requiring Elite, Intapp, or Aderant training. The company will develop Capensys training services to complement Wilson’s own software and service offerings, and is creating packaged training content for Wilson Proforma Tracker software to help firms digitize pre-bill preparation and validation. Additionally, the company is developing a broad offering around Microsoft Azure, including Power BI as well as Cognitive Services and Machine Learning.
Arbor Ridge Partners served as the exclusive M&A advisor to Capensys and arranged this transaction.
Wilson Allen operates virtually in locations throughout the United States, Canada, and the U.K. There are no plans to make staffing or location changes for Capensys staff and consultants. To learn more about Capensys training services and online learning, visit https://wilsonallen.com/services/training.