Spotted on Rick Klau’s blog, another major acquisition in the legal market.
LexisNexis has announced it is acquiring Interface Software, Inc., makers of Interaction software, a client relationship management system (CRM) widely used by large law firms.
Over the last few years, both LexisNexis and Thomson Legal and Regulatory (parent company of West) have acquired several software concerns. It looks increasingly like both companies are bulking up. It’s not clear yet how this will play out in the future. Combining multiple products under one roof presumably offers benefits to the acquirors, particularly the potential to cross-sell and to reduce overhead. The benefits to law firm customers is not as clear. Is it a single point of contact for multiple products? Is it integration of products? Lower prices? System-spanning content or taxonomies?
It will be interesting to watch the legal software market evolve. If nothing else, perhaps such acquisitions will continue to inspire entrepreneurs and innovators because acquisitions like this provide an exit strategy.