Cincinnati-based legaltech firm SurePoint has acquired Cole Valley Software, the maker of a customer relationship management platform targeted at legal professionals, for an undisclosed amount. 

The transaction promises to create the first legaltech platform that integrates real-time CRM into practice management and financial data, SurePoint said in a statement. 

By bringing together SurePoint’s cloud-based management platform and ContactEase’s CRM solution, the combined company hopes to allow law firms to ‘holistically manage and grow client relationships’, according to a joint statement. The new company will have a total of 150 employees, a spokesperson told The Global Legal Post. 

Tom Obermaier, CEO of SurePoint, said: “Our two companies share a similar trajectory and history, a corresponding middle market client base, complementary values and corporate cultures, and the ability and desire to merge two platforms into one best-in-class solution for all legal management and marketing needs.”

Founded in 1991, Cole Valley’s ContactEase platform lays claim to an industry-leading 90% adoption rate. The platform functions within Microsoft Outlook with integration with Hubspot and focuses on capturing competitive intelligence on clients, prospects and other contacts while tracking and reporting business development activity, the company said. 

Cole Valley’s president, Jennifer Whittier, said incorporating ContactEase into SurePoint’s platform “made sense for the next phase of our technology’s growth onto the cloud”. 

“Our approach to bringing visibility to every facet of contact connection will now include essential financial data, generating new avenues for lawyers intent on developing a thriving book of business,” she said, adding that the company anticipates that “law firms will enthusiastically embrace the opportunity to easily access a single source of information”. 

A number of legaltech companies have turned to M&A to expand their footprints recently as the level of tech adoption in the legal industry has continued to skyrocket during the pandemic. Earlier this month, London-based company BigHand acquired Iridium Technologies to boost its analytics offering, while US legaltech giant Epiq bought Canadian alternative legal service provider Simplex Services for an undisclosed amount last December. 

And in November, New York-based legal ops company Brightflag acquired Joinder, a record-keeping system for corporate legal teams developed at Orrick’s in-house tech incubator.