Pro bono legal tech company Paladin has appointed Litera’s former M&A head turned strategic adviser Haley Altman and Cisco’s former chief legal officer Mark Chandler to its board of directors, as the company ushers in a new phase of growth post its Series A financing.
Paladin helps lawyers to find and track pro bono opportunities online, working with international law firms such as Akin Gump; Clifford Chance; McDermott Will & Emery; Vedder Price; Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati; and Winston & Strawn, and the in-house legal teams at Dell and Zurich.
In its Series A in May it raised $8m – bringing the sum raised to over $12m since its launch in 2015 – with Altman and Chandler brought in to advise and guide as Paladin expands its offering globally.
Headquartered in New York and led by CEO and co-founder Kristen Sonday, Paladin expanded into the UK in November 2021 in partnership with the six firms named above, which it already works with in the United States.
It is standard for companies to build out their board following a Series A in order to bring in industry expertise. Altman was the co-founder and CEO of Doxly, a transaction management platform that was acquired by Litera in 2019. Before taking on the role of strategic adviser, she spent the last 18 months as global head of corporate, completing 10 legal technology acquisitions in that time. Before Doxly, Altman was an attorney at Ice Miller and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Her background in product development and deep knowledge of the legal market will be integral as Paladin continues to grow.
Well known in the corporate world, Chandler is a fellow at Stanford Law School’s Rhode Center for the Legal Profession and served as the CLO at Cisco for 20 years. While at Cisco, Chandler led a team of 450 and now co-leads Stanford Law’s Filing Fairness Project access to justice initiative, a multi-jurisdictional effort to simplify court filing processes to benefit pro bono clients and self-represented litigants.
“Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of watching Kristen and Felicity build Paladin and increase access to justice across the world. Paladin simplifies the pro bono process within firms, increasing engagement across the firm, and enables legal teams to continue important skill development,” said Altman.
“Paladin is providing a smart, effective solution to simplifying and enhancing pro bono administration for law firms and companies, and driving greater and more effective support for clients,” said Chandler. “Paladin solves a problem I saw up-close at Cisco and as a board member at a large legal services provider, with a platform that can extend to other tasks as well. I’m confident in the Paladin team’s ability to execute on this opportunity.”
The pair join Paladin’s existing board members Kristen Sonday (Co-Founder, CEO), Felicity Levey (Co-Founder, Executive Chairwoman), and Rostam Zafari (Founder, World Within).