IGHS39 - Litera Acquires FileTrail: Strengthening the Portfolio of Legal Technology Solutions

Jim Merrifield (00:00.814)
Well hello and welcome to the InfoGov hot seat. I'm your host Jim Merrifield and with me today is Tina Harkins at Litera and Beth Ann Stuebe at FileTrail Welcome to you both.

Beth Anne Stuebe (00:11.861)
Thank

Tina Harkins (00:12.075)
Hi, Jim Thanks for having us.

Jim Merrifield (00:14.392)
Yeah, it's great to have two guests today and we'll get to that reason why a little later, but let's get to know both of you a little better first before we get into our main event discussion. Tina, to start off, can you tell us a brief introduction of yourself, your current role, and if you'd like to offer one fun fact about yourself.

Tina Harkins (00:35.501)
Okay, my name is Tina Harkins. I'm the Director of Product for the Governance Portfolio of Products here at Litera I have been in legal technology in one way or another for the last 25 years, consulting, worked at several software companies, worked at several law firms. Like I say, I've sat at every seat around this roundtable. And I've been at Litera for a little over two years, we were acquired

I was with Prosperoware Prosperoware previously. So we were acquired two years, a little over two years ago, two and a half years ago. Fun fact, let's see. I have a goal to hit all 50 states. It got a little sidelined about right around the pandemic. I am missing two and not the two you'd think. I'm missing Iowa and New Mexico. So hopefully that's in my near future.

Jim Merrifield (01:35.054)
Wow, only two? That's amazing. Good for you.

Tina Harkins (01:36.395)
Yeah. And I have rules about it. Can't be an airport. Has to be actually in the state.

Beth Anne Stuebe (01:37.64)
That's awesome.

Jim Merrifield (01:44.642)
Okay, I like that. That's awesome. Cool. Thank you for that. So Beth Ann same questions.

Beth Anne Stuebe (01:50.74)
Sure, I'm Beth Ann Stuebe I am the VP of Marketing Operations at FileTrail. I have been in legal tech, Jim, I've known you for what, better part of a decade or so. And I've come to it very much from the publications, content, and corporate communication side of legal. And I'm really excited for what we're gonna talk about today. A fun fact, I'm going

going to trek across Wales this late fall. I'm going to cross from one side of the country to the other, starting off kind of on the Atlantic side and putting my feet later on in the Irish Sea. So that'll be a good fun trip. Not as cool as Iowa will be though, but you

Tina Harkins (02:30.282)
Hahaha!

Jim Merrifield (02:31.763)
Good for you. We got two travelers, two world travelers on our hands here on the hot seat today. So yeah, thank you so much for both in you introducing yourself to the audience. Yeah, we've known each other, all of us for quite some time. So let's get into this main event conversation, why we're really here, because yesterday, right, hitting the news was that Litera acquired FileTrail So we're going to talk a little bit about the impact of that to the market.

how you two are viewing the acquisition and some other highlights that you'd like to share as well. So here's a question for both of you. Maybe we'll start with Tina from the Litera side. Can you start by giving us a overview of the recent acquisition for those who, I guess, didn't see the news yesterday all over the place? And again, what motivated your two companies

to make them move and then after Tina answers, Beth Anne you can comment as well.

Tina Harkins (03:31.447)
Yeah, sure. So yes, yesterday, Litera acquired FileTrail And it really, you know, the acquisition supports Litera's mission of amplifying the impact of every attorney within their firm or corporate legal department. I think from our perspective, FileTrail really rounds out our governance, risk and compliance suite of products from records management, that unified view of where all of

content is across the organization, as well as matter file transfers between firms. We want to incorporate that expertise in that records management, governance, matter mobility into our portfolio of solutions. And it helps us equip law firms and corporate legal departments with another essential tool to operate with greater efficiency and precision.

Jim Merrifield (04:28.196)
Yeah, thank you for that. I'm Beth Anne

Beth Anne Stuebe (04:30.767)
Yeah, I think it's a great opportunity from the kind FileTrail perspective. We've been privately held for the better part of 20 years, serving a huge kind of swath of the legal tech clientele and into the corporate legal side. And it's been a great journey from our records management perspective. But exactly as Tina said, this is something that will serve a greater legal tech good. It's a better fit in the competitive landscape today.

There have been a lot of changes over last few years in GRC and this really shores us all up together.

Jim Merrifield (05:03.448)
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I'm pretty excited being a Litera customer, former FileTrail customer, former FileTrail employee. So I'm definitely interested in learning more about this acquisition for sure. So Tina, here's a question. What specific advantages does FileTrail bring to your product offerings? I know you've just mentioned a few with Matter Mobility

and things like that, but anything else you wanted to add?

Tina Harkins (05:34.561)
Yeah, I think from my perspective as a product manager of a governance platform, I think that FileTrail brings that comprehensive view of records management disposition, workflow, reducing the risk through data minimization to our portfolio. I always said that a full governance suite really starts

matter inception, and then manages that content throughout the life cycle of that matter. And it really can't call governance solution a governance solution unless you have disposition. And to me, this, I'm very excited about this myself, just because this is kind of my pet project. I really wanted that piece in our suite of products. have to, I mean, it's becoming increasingly more important for law firms.

and corporate legal departments and corporations to manage disposition of records. mean, people think that just because we're moving into a digital world, that it's not as relevant, but I think it's even more relevant to minimize that data, get rid of it when you don't need it. There's a lot of evolving regulations and data security threats across the physical and digital world that we really need to start focusing on that. I think law firms

have already started focusing on that. And this really brings in that expertise into Litera and really, again, rounds out that portfolio.

Jim Merrifield (07:08.26)
Yeah, there's tremendous synergies there again, and thank you for highlighting all those different synergies and modules and things like that. So let's talk about your client basis, right? First off, Beth Anne, for FileTrail, I'm sure all your clients are like, well, how does this impact me, right? How does this benefit your current customers and clients? Would you care to comment on

Beth Anne Stuebe (07:32.147)
Absolutely. complete and just to start off, we've actually gotten an incredible amount of incredibly thrilled, positive feedback. People are excited. There's nothing that a FileTrail customer is going to lose. They're only going to gain here. There is a really great opportunity here to bring a larger, know, we're, the FileTrail's the leading information governance and records management solution out on the market.

But becoming part of FileTrail really does allow us to be a little bit more agile. It's going to keep our roadmap moving forward, but it's going to bring people into a different SaaS kind of platform. It's going to bring them into a different AI technology set. There's a lot more pieces of this that are going to be able to exist that wouldn't have been able to exist if FileTrail had just continued to push the product, continued to innovate on the roadmap. There's a lot more coming down the pipeline.

Clients are going to see no changes right now. We're looking just a bit ahead. This just happened Monday. We've got a lot of roadmap ahead of us and we've got a lot of time. But I think there's a lot of concern, as Tina said, about sensitive data breaches right now. There's a lot of things going on in records. And as we move away from paper, this is really the time that this is, seeing our highly regulated industries change, this is the time for this.

Jim Merrifield (08:55.986)
This is hot off the press. And again, thank you for both of you literally joining me the next day. So that's amazing. So Tina, how about for your clients? I'm interested in that, right? Because we're clients. So I wanted to tell us about what's the client impact of all this.

Tina Harkins (09:09.855)
Yeah.

Tina Harkins (09:14.445)
Well, again, we have a lot of clients that are, there's an overlapping client base, which I think is great. And I think, you know, personally, I haven't had a chance to talk to too many of our clients, but I feel like there's a lot of excitement around this as well, because, you know, it obviously moves both products into a more kind of modern sphere.

where, again, we can incorporate some more modern SaaS technologies with FileTrail. We can also incorporate a lot of those principles and expertise and records management capabilities into our governance portfolio. And we can't, again, neglect to talk about the file transfer, which, as we all know, is becoming probably the biggest pain point that a lot of firms are having with records right now. It's not even just transferring them between firms. It's transferring them back to clients or into

you know, other places. it's, it's that to me is really kind of pulls in that capability into the product suite. And I know that our customers are going to be thrilled with

Jim Merrifield (10:19.226)
Yeah, it seems like exciting times to be a Litera and a FileTrail customer. So thanks for sharing all those insights. So a question for you, Tina. How does this acquisition position your company with the competitive advantage in the legal technology space? What's your thought on that? I know it's a loaded question,

Tina Harkins (10:38.379)
Yeah, I really do, you know, again, to just restate that it really brings in that, you know, rounds out that governance portfolio. So, you know, I think that, you know, and to Beth Anne's point about being the leader in the records management space right now and Cam really trying to be the leader in the governance digital space right now that it really kind

shores us up to be the company to be, essentially. And I think it just provides so much value to our customers and to our prospective customers that I really do believe that this really shores up that competitive structure of company, of

Jim Merrifield (11:29.246)
Yeah, well said. So let's fast forward into the future here. Not too far into the future, just the next few years. How do you see the legal technology landscape evolving over the next few years? And how does this acquisition fit into that vision? Maybe, Beth Anne, you can start with

Beth Anne Stuebe (11:50.671)
feel like the last post -COVID years have been moving at such a phenomenal rate in tech. We've kind of hit a bell curve, gone over it, just kind of gone the entirety of the gamut. do think that having Litera and FileTrail kind of leading that one -stop shop, if you will, pushes the tech market forward. There's a much greater chance to innovate and create a roadmap that allows for our clients, for our prospective clients.

to get what they need in one place and to help them solve really basic problems that everybody in legal is kind of facing. There is a lot of, know, there are vendors out there, there are business partners, there are conferences and places that you can go to get help. But isn't it a nice opportunity to see the legal tech landscape kind of pull everything into a space where innovation really is key and bringing these two kind of, you know, companies that are longstanding, well -founded, well -rounded

together, we'll just push that kind of landscape further. I really like the opportunity to continue the evolution of the space. And I think that we'll be talking a little bit more about kind of information governance as a kind of leader in the conversation versus kind of a secondary or tertiary piece of the legal tech landscape.

Tina Harkins (13:08.651)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more with that. Well, I think just, you know, generally we're, know, Gen AI is really where the legal industry is headed and it's understanding how we could implement, you know, Gen AI to improve workflows and solve real challenges lawyers face daily. You know, we're working on it at Litera here. We're investing with Art Dragon and Cure and Foundation and drafting products.

Jim Merrifield (13:11.576)
Perfect. Anything Tina you wanted to add to that?

Tina Harkins (13:38.733)
And it just makes sense to start looking at it from a governance perspective as well, because if you think about the amount of dark data that's sitting out in firms and organizations sitting out in file shares, and how do we leverage technologies like Gen AI to again start minimizing that data. And then again, as more companies are moving to the cloud and they're paying for that storage,

I think governance will also play into that as well to help them minimize and optimize the costs that they're spending every year on storage for that.

Jim Merrifield (14:18.126)
Yeah, I think that's excellent. I'm glad you mentioned AI, because I was going to ask you. I mean, I've been getting so many emails on like this AI tech, that AI tech, because of course we're, what, two weeks away from ILTACon. And I'm sure you both will be there, right? Probably spending a lot of time together. So looking forward to that. Looking forward to seeing you both in Nashville. So I know we talked about a lot. I'm sure there's lots more to come.

Tina Harkins (14:36.599)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim Merrifield (14:46.562)
about this acquisition, but I thank you for sharing some insights, hot off the press. Is there anything else that either one of you wanted to, maybe a final thought for the audience today? Maybe Beth Anne, we'll go with you and then last final thought after for Tina.

Beth Anne Stuebe (15:05.632)
Sure, I'll give two plugs. First, we're really excited to join the Litera family. This is an exciting time to be in legal tech, not just from kind of a marketing perspective, but as a client or a consumer of technology. This is pretty much the heyday. Think of this as Babe Ruth and walk off home runs. This is everything that we'd want to see out there, and AI really is just kind of the cream on that. So it's a good time to be part of the FileTrail and part of the Litera families.

And then second, plug to swing by our booths at ILTACon FileTrail will be at 604 and we'll be sending clients back and forth to kind of walk through story scales, meet the teams. But it's a really good opportunity to see everybody in person and ask any questions that someone has. So we're excited to see you

Jim Merrifield (15:54.018)
Yeah, very nice. I love the baseball plug, especially today is the trade deadline. So I'm like super interested in who the Yankees are going to, are going to grab, but I love the, I love that, that illustration there, Tina, how about your final

Tina Harkins (16:08.735)
I always The Phillies lost to the Yankees last night, so I'm not very happy right

Yeah, I would say that this is the ideal time for FileTrail to come into the fold. And we're very excited about it. Me personally, very excited about it. And again, I think it's a great time because Litera you know, with all of the acquisitions they've done over the past five years, we're at such a great place right now. We have

Jim Merrifield (16:14.362)
It's okay, got two more games.

Tina Harkins (16:39.917)
just our R &D organization, our customer care organizations, our product organizations. There's just lot of like, just, what's word I'm looking for? Collaboration and really well -defined processes. And I think FileTrail is gonna just kind of fold right in and it's just gonna be fabulous. Also say, give a plug to ILTA, come by our booth. I think it's 201. Yeah, it is

Beth Anne Stuebe (17:08.231)
Yes.

Tina Harkins (17:08.981)
Okay, great. It'll be hard to miss. It's a pretty big booth. But yeah, please stop by and ask for me if you have any questions or anybody at the booth will be able to help you.

Jim Merrifield (17:21.86)
Perfect. I'm looking forward to seeing both of you in person, seeing your teams and being down in Nashville. Once again, thanks so much for spending some time today, learning more about the acquisition, spending some time with the audience. So thank you to you both. And of course, like Tina and Beth Anne here, if you'd like to be a guest on the InfoGov Hot Seat, all you need to do is submit your information through our website, infogovhotseat .com. And thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Beth Anne Stuebe (17:49.949)
Thank

Tina Harkins (17:50.358)
Thanks.

Jim Merrifield (17:51.834)
Thank you.