Robert Ambrogi Blog
ASG LegalTech, a portfolio company composed of four popular legal practice products — PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and Headnote — today introduced a new brand for itself, Paradigm, to better represent how the company views itself, its customers and its plans for moving forward.
In a special episode of LawNext recorded in advance of today’s announcement, I discussed the rebrand and the reasons for it with Soumya Nettimi, CEO of Paradigm, and Colin Li, chief growth officer of Paradigm.
“When people hear the word paradigm, they typically think of paradigm shift. and with that, what we want to communicate with our rebrand is that our mission is to fundamentally shift the standard for legal technology,” Nettimi said on the podcast.
Soumya Nettimi
“Paradigm is also associated with the word perspective, so what this brand also communicates is that we have a really strong perspective on what legal tech should provide to its customers,” she continued. “Our strongest perspective is that not all law firms are created equal, and a one-size-fits-all technology approach just doesn’t exist.”
To that end, Nettimi and Li said that Paradigm will continue to maintain its four products as standalone products and brands, while Paradigm will represent the parent company and its vision for the broader suite of products going forward.
‘Positive Transformation’
The ASG LegalTech brand came about after the investment company Alpine SG (ASG) acquired two legal technology companies, the practice-management platform PracticePanther in 2018 (which I covered here) and the time, billing and practice-management platform Bill4Time in 2017.
Colin Li
In February 2019, ASG merged the two companies to create a unified legal technology business under the name ASG LegalTech, naming as CEO Nettimi, who had taken over as PracticePanther CEO the prior October.
In March 2019, ASG LegalTech went on to acquire a third practice management platform, MerusCase, which is tailored for lawyers in specific practice areas, including workers’ compensation, employment and personal injury.
Then, last September, it acquired the online payments platform Headnote and, using Headnote’s e-payments technology, launched PantherPayments, a fully integrated, all-in-one payment system within the PracticePanther platform.
(The Headnote acquisition was the subject of a September LawNext interview with Nettimi and Headnote founder Sarah Schaaf.)
But as the company grew, it came to the conclusion that its name did not convey its vision for its future growth and for the impact it wants to have on the law practices that are its customers.
“Paradigm represents positive transformation,” Nettimi said. “From introducing Bill4Time as the industry’s first SaaS native solution in 2006 to our recent launch of PantherPayments, our software solutions have pushed the boundaries of the legal technology industry.
“Our team is fired up to continue this legacy and drive innovation to serve our customers,” she continued. “The new Paradigm brand helps us articulate this ethos.”
[Disclosure: Paradigm is a paid sponsor of the LawNext podcast.]