BigHand announces acquisition of Digitory Legal to help Law Firms make impactful change through DEI data

Global News

22
Aug
2022

Editor

BigHand, a leading provider of operational and financial products for law firms, today announced it has acquired Digitory Legal. Digitory Legal (Digitory) is a cost analytics platform designed to help law firms and in-house legal departments better leverage their timecard data.

The analysis unlocks information below the surface of the billing data which identifies what ‘actually’ happened on a matter, delivering actionable cost data to predict and refine future pricing and proposals.  Additionally, the data deep-dive uncovers unprecedented levels of information on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI). The data provides firms/work allocation teams DEI specifics to understand if diverse lawyers are doing career-enhancing work on matters - an increasingly growing request from law firm clients. 

Digitory was founded by CEO Catherine Krow, a former practicing attorney, who spent 17 years practicing law at top-tier firms as a Litigation Partner. Catherine commented “Throughout my time practicing law I witnessed the growing tensions between lawyers and clients frustrated by poorly scoped and inaccurate budgets and fee structures which lead to cost overruns and/or write-offs – something neither lawyers nor their clients want.  The source of this frustration was the poor quality of billing data and the difficulty of using that data to create innovative and accurate fee proposals. I started Digitory to solve this problem.  Additionally, for obvious reasons, I have always been passionate about diversity and equal opportunities within law firms, having seen firsthand both the positives and negatives with different firms’ approaches to it. When we realized the hidden insight that our technology surfaces could positively impact a DEI change en-mass, the business took on a whole new purpose.” 

BigHand and Digitory have been partners for several years, with Eric Wangler, Managing Director of People Productivity commenting “Digitory’s name kept popping up in discussions we were having with clients about their resourcing and work allocation processes – especially in conversations about DEI. Additionally, both businesses have been big advocates of impacting law firms’ journeys in being more diverse, so we kept bumping into each other at events and discussions about the progress being made here. In the end, it just made sense for us to join forces as partners. From early in the partnership discussions, it became apparent there was also a strong connection with our matter pricing solution and how timecard data could be better used in the matter budgeting process. As we explored what the two companies could do together, it became a no-brainer to make it happen – and here we are”. 

Rob Stote, Global Director Financial Productivity Products at BigHand continued “pricing professionals traditionally are not legal matter experts, which makes relying on historically poor timecard data to define pricing strategies difficult. Digitory’s product is designed to read and interpret law firm billing information, which can be used to inform future pricing decisions – giving pricing teams actionable data”.

“Alongside the technology alignments, culturally the two businesses have the same approach to business – ‘how can we best help our customers’” continued Krow. “Together we can now help law firms take strides forward with their DEI agendas and make impactful change within the legal sector, which is very exciting and frankly, overdue.” 

Catherine and her team will join BigHand effective today. Catherine is a strong addition to the BigHand team for both her law firm experience and her accolades. She is a serial award-winner for her contribution to technology and DEI and was recently recognized by the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) as a 2022 Legal Innovation in Operations project recipient.  Catherine also was named a 2018 Top 10 Woman Entrepreneur In Cloud Innovation, was a 2019 American Bar Association "Women of Legal Technology List" honoree and included in the FastCase 50 Class of 2019 “honoring the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries, & leaders”. Additionally, her law firm experience supports BigHand’s goal of staying close to their clients’ challenges through specialized experts who truly understand, firsthand, challenges facing the legal sector. 

Financial details for this transaction were not disclosed.