Last week saw two sizeable US acquisitions in the legal practice management space, as SurePoint Technologies acquires Cole Valley Software – the Idaho-headquartered vendor behind ContactEase – and Paradigm, which is headquartered in New York, acquires TrustBooks.
ContactEase is a customer relations management (CRM) solution for legal professionals and SurePoint plans to integrate real-time CRM into its practice management and financial data, “allowing law firms to holistically manage and grow client relationships.”
“Our clients were adamant that CRM is the next feature we should incorporate into our platform. ContactEase provides the best solution on the market,” said SurePoint’s chief executive officer, Tom Obermaier, announcing the acquisition on 16 February. He added: “Our two companies share a similar trajectory and history, a corresponding middle market client base, complementary values and corporate cultures, and the ability and desire to merge two state-of-the-art platforms into one groundbreaking best-in-class solution for all legal management and marketing needs.”
ContactEase captures competitive intelligence on clients, prospects and other contacts while tracking and reporting business development activity. It operates within Outlook and includes integration with Hubspot.
“Incorporating ContactEase into SurePoint’s easy-to-use platform made sense for the next phase of our technology’s growth onto the cloud,” said Cole Valley’s president Jennifer Whittier. “Our approach to bringing visibility to every facet of contact connection will now include essential financial data, generating new avenues for lawyers intent on developing a thriving book of business. We anticipate law firms will enthusiastically embrace the opportunity to easily access a single source of information.”
As part of the transaction, all of ContactEase’s workforce will become part of the SurePoint team. The combined customer base will expand to 600 mid-sized law firms.
Meanwhile Paradigm on 17 February announced its acquisition of TrustBooks, a cloud-based accounting software built specifically for law firms. TrustBooks is the latest addition to Paradigm’s suite of software solutions which include the legal practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, and MerusCase as well as Paradigm’s native payment solution, powered by Headnote. TrustBooks co-founders, Tom Boyle and Chad Todd join Paradigm as the co-general managers of TrustBooks.
“We are overjoyed to be adding a full accounting solution to our suite of products with the acquisition of TrustBooks,” said Soumya Nettimi, CEO of Paradigm. “As more law firms turn towards technology to power their practices, the ability to take control of billing, and now accounting, in-house with simple and intuitive software is a massive time and money-saver for our customers.”
Launched in 2015, TrustBooks was created to simplify the legal trust accounting process for non-accountants and empower attorneys to handle their books while staying compliant with their State Bar through three-way reconciliation.
“When you take away the fear and time commitment out of trust accounting, attorneys build confidence that lets them feel like they can worry less, and spend more time being billable,” said Boyle. “This is what sets TrustBooks apart, and we could not be more excited about the opportunity to scale our accounting solution to the legal community through our partnership with Paradigm.”
Paradigm recently announced the expansion of its leadership team as well as a strategic growth investment from global investment firm, Francisco Partners.