Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe’s innovation unit Orrick Labs has spun out its first business – alternative legal service provider Joinder, a platform that allows in-house departments to better collaborate with their law firms. 

The new business will be led by former Orrick partners Dan Keller and Jim Brock, who will serve as CEO and chief product officer respectively. The platform allows corporate legal departments to merge data storage, task management, communications and document management into one digital workspace, enabling in-house lawyers to directly access information they might previously have needed to seek from their external providers. 

Mitch Zuklie, Orrick chairman and CEO, said: “When we launched Orrick Labs, our goal was to tackle problems for which we did not see adequate solutions in the market. Joinder, the result of our client’s demands for more insight into their records, is the first product to spin out from the Lab. And it is just that: a better platform for legal engagement, built by a team that understands how lawyers and legal departments work together.”

IT networking and cybersecurity business Juniper Networks is one early adopter of the platform. Charandeep Kaur, senior director of legal operations and chief of staff at the company, said the platform will enable it to see all of its upcoming deadlines in one place and access case documents without having to call its external legal providers. 

Orrick said it also uses the platform in a number of ways, including for the firm’s Privacy in a Box global compliance platform and as a system-of-record for more than 1,000 corporate clients. Joinder helps in-house teams manage litigation, corporate and IP, compliance and legal operations. 

Keller, who was previously head of Orrick’s global tech sector practice, said: “Work product, records, deadlines and tasks have long been controlled by outside law firms. Joinder flips that script and puts control firmly in the hands of legal departments.”

Orrick launched Orrick Labs in 2017 as a way to incubate and accelerate the development of legaltech solutions that can help improve client service quality, security and efficiency.