Law practice management company Clio has acquired the automated court-calendaring company CalendarRules, Clio’s first acquisition since becoming the first law practice management company to achieve unicorn status earlier this year and its second acquisition ever.
“This acquisition is an important one as we continue to help law firms navigate a changing legal landscape,” cofounder and CEO Jack Newton said in an email yesterday.
“There has been a massive increase in the adoption of cloud-based solutions to help legal operations at a firm level, and many hope to see a similar evolution within the court system as well,” Newton said.
“As we uncovered in our latest Legal Trends Report, 89% of legal professionals believe court systems can be improved with better access to technology.”
CalendarRules, founded in 2007 as a spin-off from Open Text, says it has over 1,800 rule sets for federal and state courts throughout the U.S.
Later today, I will discuss the acquisition with Newton and CalendarRules founder and CEO Scott Davis, who is joining Clio as general manager of CalendarRules.
But in an email, Newton said that Clio’s acquisition of CalendarRules will help law firms manage their court deadlines in three ways, by:
- Automatically creating calendar events based on jurisdictional court deadlines.
- Allowing firms to set up automated reminders.
- Syncing court dates to calendars in Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar.
“By providing customers with up-to-date and accurate court rules information, we are able to eliminate some of the complexity they experience on a daily basis, reduce legal malpractice risk, and free up more time for lawyers to focus on their clients,” Newton said.
In 2018, Clio acquired Lexicata, the client intake and relationship management platform, which it developed into its CRM platform Clio Grow.