provides intuitive, rapid document automation solutions designed to streamline legal processes and improve efficiency for law firms and legal departments.
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Background
Sam Smolkin, the founder of , has a background as a private equity M&A lawyer at Kirkland and Ellis. During his time at the firm, he did not see any advanced technology in the market for managing high-profile, multibillion-dollar deals. This led him to conceive the idea for Office & Dragons around 2017-2018, during late nights spent on tasks like copying, pasting, and mail merging. In 2019, Sam left Kirkland to develop a prototype for the solution he envisioned. With some software coding experience, he began creating the initial version of Office & Dragons. The company later joined the Barclays Legal Tech Incubator in London, which helped it grow. The founding team expanded to include a COO and CTO, and they worked together to build the product and acquire customers over time.
What problem was Office & Dragons originally designed to solve?
Office & Dragons was originally designed to solve the problem of inefficient and outdated technology used by lawyers in managing complex, high-stakes deals. Sam experienced firsthand the frustration of spending countless hours on tasks like copying, pasting, and mail merging documents while working as a private equity M&A lawyer at Kirkland and Ellis. Despite working on high-profile, multibillion-dollar deals, the technology available to him and his colleagues was inadequate for the job. This inefficiency not only consumed valuable time but also increased the risk of errors. Sam envisioned a solution that would streamline these processes, reduce the manual labor involved, and minimize the chances of mistakes, ultimately leading to the creation of Office & Dragons. Today, Office & Dragons is used across a wide range of practice areas such as M&A, Finance, Capital Markets, Employment, Real Estate and Litigation.
What are the target demographics and market reach?
primarily targets large law firms, specifically those within the Global 200. The majority of Office & Dragons’ customers are Global 200 law firms. These firms range from the smaller end of the Global 200 spectrum to the largest firms, such as Baker McKenzie. While the company predominantly focuses on law firms, they also have some in-house legal departments as customers, particularly in the asset management space. Additionally, some law firm customers use Office & Dragons for non-legal work, such as HR tasks. The company’s market reach extends mainly to these large law firms and occasionally to in-house legal teams. As the company grows, they are looking to explore the in-house market further. Their current focus, however, remains on serving the needs of major law firms by providing automation solutions for various legal processes and document workflows.
How does Office & Dragons differentiate itself in a competitive market?
According to Sam, Office & Dragons differentiates itself in a competitive market through several key aspects. Unlike traditional document automation solutions, Office & Dragons offers a fundamentally different approach that is simpler, faster, and more efficient. Here are the main points of differentiation:
1. Ease of Use: The platform is designed to be user-friendly, allowing associates, paralegals, and trainees to use it directly without needing specialist automation experts. This contrasts with traditional automation systems that require extensive setup and expertise before delivering value.
2. Comprehensive Functionality: Office & Dragons goes beyond initial document drafting. It can handle tasks such as updating multiple documents with new information (like changing closing dates) even after several rounds of negotiation. This capability is not commonly found in other automation platforms.
3. Speed and Simplicity: The platform allows for quick set-up and immediate value realization. For example, a client reported using it on 40,000 documents across 1,000 projects in a year, which is achievable due to the platform’s straightforward implementation process.
4. Advanced Automation: The platform supports more complex automation tasks, allowing knowledge lawyers to build reusable forms and templates without waiting for specialist resources. This is further enhanced by the integration of generative AI, which simplifies the creation of complex template logic.
5. Collaborative Features: The platform includes built-in collaboration tools, enabling junior staff to work on documents and invite senior colleagues to review and make changes directly on the platform, improving efficiency and accuracy.
According to Sam, these differentiators position Office & Dragons as a more agile and accessible solution compared to traditional document automation tools, catering to the dynamic needs of large law firms and other legal departments.
