The HotDocs acquisition
Hmm, that's a boring title, isn't it..
I’m really fascinated by the news that long-standing doc-automation platform, HotDocs, has been acquired. I’m also at risk of this becoming a doc-automation newsletter, such is the frequency that I have written about it recently (which is also weird, because I actually spend very little of my time thinking about it, relatively speaking).
It’s fascinating to me, because it comes at a time when lots of people I speak to are thinking to themselves, I’m glad I’m not in the document tooling space - it was already very competitive with a range of excellent, modern doc-auto companies of late, and with the boom of generative AI tools eroding the perceived benefits of traditional doc-auto it only looks to get tougher (again, you can read my previous thoughts on this topic - but regardless of the downsides, generative AI will undoubtedly get you to some resemblance of a first draft incredibly quickly and cheaply - If it can remove 60% of the document drafting work, that means the traditional solution now only offers a 40% saving, and you also have to assume that that percentage ratio is only going to get further).
So what’s the play?
I have zero insight into details of the deal, but it’s an interesting one to consider.
In all likeliness, it’s the familiar story of an ageing, established (doc-auto) software being purchased by another longstanding enterprise company, looking to bolster its offering and position in B2B enterprise markets. A market grab to continue to cement it’s relevance and position (despite AI, there is still loads of value to be had in doc-automation done right). In announcing the news, Artificial Lawyer suggested “Is this a big deal? Well, it’s perhaps more of a footnote in legal tech history.”, to be honest, may well be how this plays out.
However, I’m here to be optimistic. Maybe, just maybe this is the start of their play to create a doc-auto platform of the future, combining AI tooling to overcome the challenges with rolling out doc-auto solutions whilst also selling it packaged with other end-to-end document AI tooling.
Quoted in Legal IT Insider:
CARET’s CEO, Keri Gohman said: “Technology has always been the great enabler, allowing organizations to punch well above their weight. That has never been more evident than it is today as firms look for solutions to better compete in a marketplace undergoing a significant transformation.”
Gohman said the company had established HotDocs as the category leader for simplifying complex document creation for large enterprises, and that Mitratech would be the ideal home for it to achieve its next phase of growth.
Mitratech acquires HotDocs from CARET - Legal IT Insider
Reading between the lines, it does look like they plan to solve the get-out-of-bed setup cost of doc-automation, as well as elsewhere saying that “it will make way for it to accelerate its investment in its AI capabilities” - so maybe they are going to give it a shot. I’d be amazed if the AI enabled doc-auto platform of the future is powered by HotDocs, the doc-auto software created in the 90s, but here’s hoping.