The legal services industry has dramatically changed in recent years, and DWF Mindcrest has been at the forefront of altering the landscape when it comes to offering alternative legal services. Following a merger in February 2020 between ALSP Mindcrest and law firm DWF LLP, DWF Mindcrest continues to offer its revolutionary legal services model to an ever-expanding global market.
We recently sat down with Ganesh Natarajan, CEO and Co-Founder of Mindcrest, and Mark St. John Qualter, CEO of Managed Services at DWF, to discuss the success of the merger and how DWF Mindcrest continues to differentiate itself from other ALSPs in the market.
What was the impetus behind the DWF Mindcrest merger?
Mark Qualter: DWF admired the high-quality work Mindcrest was doing, and the cultures of the two businesses were very similar. A mission to transform legal services was in both companies’ mission statements. The legal market is developing rapidly in a way that it hasn’t in the past. Our three areas of managed services strategy — global reach, best-in-class operations, and driving sustainable, quality revenue — all were things we thought would be accelerated and advanced with Mindcrest on board. Our goal is to grow a global managed services operation, and acquiring Mindcrest was entirely consistent with that strategy and would give us increased critical mass.
The two businesses have a very complimentary set of capabilities and already operated broadly in the same pool. For example, DWF was building an eDiscovery consultancy and technology business, and Mindcrest had the skills and capabilities to do large volumes of document review. We were also excited to gain access to the Indian tech market, where some really exciting things are happening. Everything we thought would work well in the merger has come true. It’s been a positive experience in integrating our services and expanding our client base.
What are the main pain points DWF Mindcrest addresses?
Ganesh Natarajan: Over the last 20 years, there has been a fundamental change to the legal services marketplace. Even five years ago, ALSPs were not really considered part of that ecosystem, but were instead lumped in with tech and eDiscovery companies. Today that’s not true. In-house counsel hire ALSPs alongside law firms, and the focus is on bifurcating the work. Advances in technology have allowed us to deliver our services even better than we could in the past and better than most traditional law firms can today.
To truly offer a new way of providing legal services, we don’t just offer specialist lawyers, we also take a deeper look at what a client’s problems are and tailor a solution to meet those problems. DWF Mindcrest handles the work with more efficiency and less cost than traditional firms can. We also offer portfolio legal services, wherein entire legal departments can opt to lift and shift most of their work over to us while keeping just a core team in-house.
Mark Qualter: When I joined DWF, I saw that the needs of corporate General Counsel were changing. There was a significantly reduced focus on legal expertise, which was assumed to exist as a baseline in the firms that service them, and a much greater focus on things like transformation, cost, efficiencies, keeping abreast of legal technology and risk management. GCs now want different outcomes as many have been told that they need to significantly reduce costs and simply do more with less. This created a buy-side need in the legal market as a whole that was going unmet by the industry. DWF Mindcrest has built our whole business model around solving that problem, and as a result we believe we have become a disruptive force in the market.
How does DWF Mindcrest differ from other ALSPs or staffing agencies?
Mark Qualter: First and foremost, we’re more than an ALSP. We’ve built a holistic solution for clients. We’ve combined top-notch advisory services from the lawyers on the DWF side with the most advanced, efficient processes on the Mindcrest side in addition to the managed service capability we had built in house. When I meet with them, I ask clients what kind of legal function they really want to be. They normally talk about their people doing more strategic, fulfilling work and I tell them that we take on all the work that isn’t part of that vision and help them make the transformation.
What services or specialties does DWF Mindcrest offer?
Ganesh Natarajan: Mindcrest traditionally focused on four practice areas – Contracts Management, Compliance, Litigation and Investigations, and Legal Analytics – and those specialties continue today. The work DWF traditionally specialized in, such as real estate and commercial law, can easily be broken down into those areas.
The major piece that Mindcrest traditionally lacked, however, was advisory services, while DWF always excelled at that. By combining the two companies, we combine expert processes and expert legal advice in order to offer clients a complete solution in jurisdictions across the globe.
Mark Qualter: Mindcrest was a U.S. business with its engine room in India. DWF is a global business in over 30 countries. Now, together we can reach a broader audience and build greater critical mass using the delivery power Mindcrest had built up and the reach of DWF. Part of our strategic roadmap is to accelerate automation across the business and drive further efficiencies that complement the high-quality skill base that already exists in India without adding to our headcount. Thus we detach revenue from costs and drive greater value for our shareholders and be competitive for our clients.
You’ve mentioned technology quite a bit. What role does it play in DWF Mindcrest’s success?
Ganesh Natarajan: Technology drives everything we do, from the beginning of the process of acquiring a client, through onboarding, recruiting, assembling, and training teams, producing the work, and delivering the resulting metrics, data analytics, reporting, and feedback. The entire process is automated and takes place in our platform, which is a major change in the practice of law.
We’ve built our own workflow systems, which we customize for each project or client. Our mTech team is continually evaluating the tools available on the market and incorporating the best solutions into our platform. We’re always looking for ways to do things better and want to be prepared for unexpected challenges, which has served us well during the current pandemic.
Mark Qualter: Many of our clients come to us with the concern that they can’t keep up with legal tech because it’s so specialized, and they’re afraid of being left behind. DWF Mindcrest is always scanning the market for the latest developments and testing it out, so we can ensure our clients that they’ll always have access to the best emerging tech available.
How does DWF Mindcrest vet and train its attorneys?
Ganesh Natarajan: Many years ago we created Mindcrest University, our crown jewel. In addition to being a training program for the ALSP component of our business, it’s a full-blown university that offers about 200 courses, ranging from substantive topics to professional development.
All attorneys on the ALSP side must go through rigorous training as part of onboarding. They’re also given project-specific training, often in conjunction with the client. We prioritize our attorneys’ career development and our goal is for them to have careers in this industry and move up through management ranks. We’ve always prided ourselves on high-quality work and exceptional client services, and that’s something we’ll never compromise. Training is key to the Mindcrest Method.
What is the Mindcrest Method?
Ganesh Natarajan: The Mindcrest Method is our set of guiding principles and our secret to success — our formula for Coca-Cola, if you will. Our platform, called mTools, is where we assemble all our solutions and where our teams do all their work. It’s a systematic way of working, tweaked and customized for each client and project. mTools is coupled with Mindcrest University to create a unique methodology that has allowed us to offer the best managed services on the market.
What can we expect in the future from DWF Mindcrest?
Mark Qualter: Our combined capabilities have created new opportunities for us. DWF Mindcrest is working on evolving new products and services, such as DSAR (data subject access requests). Coming from finance and banking, I can see how the legal market is massively over-ready for disruption. The ALSP market has been growing around 25-30% a year for the last five years, and we’re on the same trajectory. We’re always looking for new products, tools, and services to offer and overall my mission is to make it as easy as possible for our clients to do business with us.
Ganesh Natarajan: Many of our clients are doubling down on their investments now and sending us more work than before. We’re constantly adding new clients and expanding our capabilities.