UnitedLex, a provider of legal and business outsourcing solutions, has acquired Los Angeles-based legal process outsourcing firm LawScribe. UnitedLex is backed by India-based venture capital firm Helion Venture Partners and Silicon Valley-based Canaan Partners.
LawScribe provides legal services in eDiscovery and document review, intellectual property, corporate transactions, legal research and support. It has offices in Los Angeles, New York, and Gurgaon. Its clients include Am Law 100 law firms, Fortune 500 companies and national legal organizations around the globe.
"This acquisition reinforces our shared commitment to the efficient and advanced delivery of legal solutions in today's evolving marketplace, and to our mutual objective of ensuring our clients maximize the operational gains from our offerings," said Daniel Reed, UnitedLex's Chief Executive Officer.
"This acquisition enables us to extend our service lines and further address market demands. Our clients will benefit from the combined scale and strength of our companies and UnitedLex's culture that attracts the industry's most experienced and sought after professionals," said Kunoor Chopra, President and CEO of LawScribe.
UnitedLex has 650 professionals in seven global offices and two data centers. The firm raised $6 million in second round of funding led by Canaan Partners in 2008. It raised series A funding from Helion in 2007.
Legal outsourcing plays have attracted interest from private equity and venture capital firms. Earlier this year, knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) firm Integreon raised $50 million from Actis. Sequoia Capital India has backed Pangea3, while there are angel backed companies like Mindcrest (Ganesh Natarajan), and JuriMatrix (Jerry Rao).
The LPO industry is the fastest growing sub-sector in the Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) domain, according to report by Evalueserve earlier this year. The LPO sector grew by 40% each year during the downturn and growth between 2010 and 2015 is expected to be
approximately 26% annually. The annual revenue of the industry is currently at $300 million, and this is expected to reach $960 million by December 2015.
