Remaking news of the week: LOD takes PE

UK private equity firm Bowmark Capital has bought out law firm BCLP’s controlling stake in innovative contract lawyer business Lawyers On Demand.

Apart from my interest as an early shareholder in AdventBalance, the Australia-Asia component of the merger that created the international LOD in 2016, the speed and sure-footedness of LOD are newsworthy:

2006 LOD Co-Founder Simon Harper dreams up the idea of a flexible lawyering service whilst on a beach during a family holiday – lawyers and clients want to work differently. (BTW Simon was one of the 40 contributors to my 2016 book Remaking Law Firms: Why & How.)
2008 Ken Jagger, then a partner at Freehills (now Herbert Smith Freehills) founds Balance Legal, based in Perth and separately John Knox, then the Head of Business Development at A&O founds Advent Lawyers in Sydney.
2010 LOD’s UK turnover doubles and Advent Lawyers open their first Asia office in Singapore.
2012 Advent Lawyers and Balance Legal merge to become AdventBalance, making them the market leader in Australasia and open a second Asia office in Hong Kong. LOD spins out from BLP to become an independent entity.
2016 LOD and AdventBalance merge to create one of the world’s largest flexible lawyer businesses.
2018 BCLP sells its controlling stake in LOD to Bowmark. LOD is now a NewLaw business with global scale; ten offices, 650+ lawyers and consultants, and more than 500 corporate and law firm clients.