Brisbane-based legal technology company Lawcadia, buoyed by another strong year of revenue growth, is expanding into the UK after securing a partnership with boutique British legal operations consultancy LEx360.
Lawcadia has been working with LEx360 since last year and has cemented the relationship with the launch of a new platform known as The GC’s Ultimate Dashboard.
The founder of LEx360, Mo Zain Ajaz who is a former general counsel with UK energy company National Grid, has joined Lawcadia as a formal advisor to support the UK expansion and assist the company’s ambitions to pursue opportunities in Europe and the Middle East.
Lawcadia’s chief operating officer Eryn Bowles, who was last month named the Legal Operations Professional of the Year at the Australian Law Awards, is relocating to the UK to spearhead the new business arm.
“Having an on-the-ground presence in the UK is something we have dreamed about for a number of years, and now that we are on-boarding and supporting more clients and partners here, this is a key focus area for us,” says Lawcadia co-founder and CEO Warwick Walsh.
“We want to push the boundaries of what is possible for legal operations and in-house legal departments, and that is what working with LEx360 brings. It is only through strategically challenging the status quo that innovation and ideas emerge.”
Lawcadia is a Software as a Service (SaaS) company co-founded by Walsh and Sacha Kirkin 2015 to assist in-house legal teams to manage their day-to-day operations including liaising with external law firms. The platform is said to enhance transparency and efficiencies for organisations through an end-to-end service offering for their legal teams.
Kirk tells Business News Australia that Lawcadia has been engaging with businesses in the UK for some time but the move to establish a base there, including setting up a dedicated data processing hub earlier this year, marks the company’s first formal move into an offshore market.
“In the UK, we are targeting corporate legal departments and corporate law firms,” says Kirk.
“There are some fantastic businesses over there that we are looking forward to working with.”
Lawcadia has grown revenue by 43 per cent over the past year and Kirk expects the UK business to contribute a significant share of revenue over the next 12 months.
“While the UK is a sophisticated market, we believe the Australian legal industry is further down the path of innovation and digital transformation. So, we think there are some good opportunities for us to tap into that in the UK.”
Kirk and Walsh both lived in the UK for many years, which Kirk says gives the founders a ‘good understanding of the market there’.
“With our COO moving over there, she has a deep understanding of the business and the platform. Having her on the ground leading and growing the team in those markets is going to be invaluable for us.”
LEx360’s Ajaz, who has more than 18 years’ experience working in the legal sector and expertise in process optimisation, is integral to Lawcadia’s growth strategy, says Kirk.
“What Mo Zain loved about Lawcadia's platform is that it is very configurable and very useful for in-house legal departments,” she says.
“He has lots of great ideas and together we can bring to market a product that is really innovative, ideally suited for the general counsel team, and make it accessible for that market.”
Ajaz says each element of The GC’s Ultimate Dashboard has been ‘deeply considered’ and was backed by industry experience, demonstrating best practice legal operations processes and reporting analytics.
“Partnering with Lawcadia was important as its end-to-end legal operations platform is ideally suited to provide an accessible, scalable and configurable solution that corporate legal departments can readily implement,” he says.
Help us deliver quality journalism to you.
As a free and independent news site providing daily updates
during a period of unprecedented challenges for businesses everywhere
we call on your support