Litera in October announced that it has reappointed Avaneesh Marwaha as chief executive officer, taking over from Sheryl Hoskins. Over the past two years Marwaha has remained involved with Litera as chairman of the board but it was nonetheless a surprise to see his return, which has been widely welcomed by the market. 
We were told that Marwaha will focus on optimizing legal workflows with enterprise-grade solutions, further integrating GenAI into Litera’s ecosystem, accelerating user adoption, and securing a foundation of innovation.
Legal IT Insider asked Marwaha some of the questions that are on everyone’s lips and it is great to see a return to this kind of direct engagement from Litera.
It’s good to have you back Avaneesh, why are you back?
My reason for coming back is that over the last two and a half years the business has been really focused on completing all the integration work of all the acquisitions and building the functions for the next phase of legal technology. We had a big Gen AI release, and it opened an aperture of what is possible and what we had already dreamed about. It has changed our ability to go and do a lot of valuable software releases. It was clear that it would be valuable to have me back and drive that, just like we did four years ago with the Litera desktop. This is mission critical for the top firms we work with and we have a good point of view of where this is heading. This was the right timing and there is an appetite in the market for using Gen AI. Litera has a breadth of solutions and is not just looking at one area of impact; you’re going to see a lot from us in the next quarter in terms of the releases we’re doing.
Is Litera finished with making acquisitions?
By no means. Litera as a brand will always be acquisitive and always looking at opportunities. What has shifted is that a lot of what we did in 2017 to 2021 was consolidating into a new way of working and that was heavy lift integration work. The amount of work the team has done allows us to acquire new technology and integrate it really quickly. You will see less competitive acquisitions, but more net new feature acquisitions. We have a lot on the roadmap, and if we can accelerate through acquisition, we’re excited to do so. Don’t be surprised if we keep acquiring, but the breath and size of the acquisitions will change.
Since Litera’s consolidation drive in the drafting space there has been a lot of new competition springing up, is that a threat?
The integration work we did in drafting was hard; they are big mission critical technologies embedded in the most critical workflows that lawyers do. 2.3 million people touch our drafting solutions every day. It was important to bring that together in a way that customers are happy with, and we made it clear we wouldn’t settle for anything less than great, but the integrated product is out now and being used by customers. We have decades of experience of those workflows and while we welcome new competition, it has just made us go faster. What is coming out from us in the next quarter leapfrogs the marketplace and according to the customers that have been helping us with early access program programs, we are getting it right. There are things we can do that others can’t: it’s not just a vehicle to draft it’s that you have the right data in the right place at the right time, and from winning a matter to doing the work and closing the work, we can provide that end-to-end solution. Drafting per se is table stakes and now we’re looking to innovate.
Rising costs are a big customer pain point, have they been going up because Litera is owned by a private equity company?
I think it’s unfair for the market to pin costs on our ownership structure. If that is the case, we should look at Microsoft and Zoom and say, ‘Why are you raising your costs?’ Costs go up every year and we should have a conversation about that because there are reasons for them to go up. During a period of inflation, we’ve done a good job of managing costs and not passing on all of our expenses while also increasing our spend on innovation. I think we’ve done a really good job of building the business in a meaningful way. Litera does its best to manage costs, but just like other industries, we have to survive. The common misconception when we buy a business is that the price goes up, but that’s not always the case. They may not have been performing well and there may have to be adjustments to keep them moving forward, but that is not tied to ownership structure or ill purpose. Last year we saw price increases from Microsoft and it’s not bespoke to legal tech, but I do recognize that it’s a pain point and I think we have done a really good job of managing price increases. I understand it and hear it, but we work through it in a meaningful way and do a great job of working with our customers on it.