The acquisition by LexisNexis of case management system company Visualfiles makes it close to a full-service law firm IT vendor. It now has the kit to turn its hand to anything.


As if the recent vendor buyout of Laserform was not enough of a sign of changing times in legal IT, last week saw one of the better-known names absorbed by another big company that wants a piece of the action.


LexisNexis now owns case management system company Visualfiles, making it close to a full-service legal IT vendor. Visualfiles has 450 customers, according to the combined company, of which 300 are law firms.


The deal was for 'an undisclosed sum', although the best estimate for its value that the Gazette has managed to elicit is £5-7 million. A LexisNexis spokesman would only say that Visualfiles had been 'financially attractive'.


The amount may not sound much compared to the outlay of the acquisitive Computer Software Group, which has spent more than £10 million in the last three months on buying legal IT suppliers Laserform and AIM, but Visualfiles has a good name and adds an essential element to LexisNexis.


At the start of May, the Gazette broke the news that LexisNexis was eyeing up the law firm IT solutions market (see [2006] Gazette, 4 May, 13). Buying Visualfiles brings it an instant law firm client base and the skills and research and development of a known case management system team.


However, the purchase does not just give LexisNexis a customer base: it also gives it a home information pack (HIP) solution and buys it a place on the board of the HIPs electronic 'language' group PISCES.


Neil Ewin, founder of Visualfiles, is a non-executive director of PISCES. He is to stay on at Visualfiles as chief software architect, but will also take on a role in international product development for LexisNexis.


Josh Bottomley, managing director of LexisNexis Butterworths, said of the acquisition: 'Adding productivity tools to LexisNexis' client development, research, and compliance solutions, Visualfiles will strengthen our ability to combine proprietary content and technology to drive the commercial success of our customers.'


Back in April, however, Mr Bottomley was a little clearer about LexisNexis's vision: 'Personally, I think I'm more commercially excited about the opportunities in the medium/smaller practice area for helping clients... as they find different ways of working with their customers,' he told the Gazette.


A LexisNexis spokesman said that the four key pillars for its strategy had now been built: client development, research, compliance, and productivity tools. Visualfiles gives the case and matter management; now all that is left for Mr Bottomley's strategic vision for the new, improved LexisNexis is practice management.


This issue has, it seems, been creating waves among IT vendors.


Solicitors Own Software (SOS), which shares 100 law firm clients with Visualfiles, immediately put out a press release stating how 'keen' the two firms were 'to confirm that the relationship between LexisNexis Visualfiles and SOS will continue unchanged'.


SOS makes the practice management software for the clients it shares with Visualfiles, so whether it will end up competing with whatever LexisNexis wants to do in terms of practice management remains to be seen.


For a quick hint, however, one might look to something else Mr Bottomley said in May. LexisNexis US bought the practice management system Time Matters last year, and Mr Bottomley told the Gazette: 'We're thinking about whether we want to create something similar to that in the UK.'


Of course, LexisNexis could always just buy a practice management vendor like it did in the US, but surely this would only make sense if Visualfiles can be plugged into it, saving LexisNexis the hassle of developing one.


Which firms in the UK fit this bill is, of course, anybody's guess.


Rupert White