The title is not a typo. An Australian company is raising money in a public offering to buy law firms. Outside capital could drive innovative legal technology.
In the UK, the Clementi reforms allow non-lawyers to own law firms. I’ve followed this because with outside capital, legal technology could become strategically more important. In Australia, legal reforms have led to a public offering by Integrated Legal Holdings Limited, which intends to buy several smaller law firms. My quick read of the prospectus is that this offering is about rolling up smaller law firms, not changing the legal business model with technology. Legally listed (LawyersWeekly, 20 Oct 06, Australia) offers the useful observation that for large law firms, raising capital is not typically a constraint, so selling shares is not attractive relative to the partnership model. But it will be interesting to see if ILH succeeds and, if so, invests more in technology than partnerships typically do.
Thanks to Simon Lewis of Sinch for alerting me to this news; his blog is here.
Legal Note from the Prospectus cover: “A copy of this Prospectus can be downloaded from the website of the Company at www.ilh.com.au. Any person accessing the electronic version of this Prospectus for the purpose of making an investment in the Company must be an Australian resident and must only access the Prospectus from within Australia.”