Remaking News of the Week: Now it’s KPMG Legal and Plexus Law

“The future of the law is not a battle of Big and New. It’s a battle to create solutions that deliver unprecedented value to clients” wrote Andrew Mellett, Founder of Plexus, in a LinkedIn post last week.”

Announcing the Series A funding of Plexus, Andrew continued “Our friends at KPMG, Stuart Fuller and Jamie Levy, agree with us: to change the game you need to bring the best of both worlds together. This relationship will free lawyers to have the impact they deserve, and free businesses to win.”

And on May 10 John Kang, The Asian Lawyer reported “KPMG Law led a $3.26 million Series A investment in the legal automation company Plexus and is also forming a strategic alliance with Plexus, allowing KPMG Law to use Plexus’ technology solution for its own clients.

KPMG Law will hold a 9.99% stake in Plexus, an eight-year-old legal automation company based in Melbourne with offices also in Sydney, London and Washington, D.C. Plexus is led by chief executive officer Andrew Mellett, a former director at research and advisory firm Corporate Executive Board. The investment is the largest venture capital funding round so far in Australia’s legal tech sector, according to Plexus.”

Plexus focuses on servicing in-house legal departments and its legal automation platform, Plexus Gateway, is used by more than 100 companies, including Australian grocery giant Woolworths, cosmetics group L’Oréal and KPMG, according to the company. Plexus also has a flexible lawyering service called Engage.

The funding will be used to invest in Plexus Gateway and fund expansion in Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., Europe and the U.S.”

The Plexus–KPMG deal is another straw in the wind confirming the diverse and growing plays on the Big Four in the bastions of BigLaw firms. Here’s a sample of others reported in Dialogue:

• The on-off deal in 2017 between Deloitte and Peter Carayiannis’ Conduit Law,
• The late 2018 EY acquisition of UK-based Riverview Law,
• PwC makes another big NewLaw move, and
• Mark Cohen’s prescient commentary Why capital is changing law – Money makes the world go around.