Evolve Law Summit: Strategic Partnerships for Legal Startups

Successful strategic partnerships are mutually beneficial to the participating parties or entities. But what does it mean to be beneficial when you are a small startup looking to larger organizations for support and resources? In this report from On The Road, host Laurence Colletti sits down with Michael Frankel, Carlos Gamez, Bill O’Boyle, David Coffee, and Dean Sonderegger from the Strategic Partnerships panel at the Evolve Law Summit in New York City to discuss ideal partnerships, how to approach large organizations, and four laws of attraction when it comes to courting a strategic partner.

Michael Frankel serves as managing director and head of the Deloitte New-venture Accelerator. He is a senior corporate development, strategy, and operating executive and has led and closed more than 100 transactions, including acquisitions, divestitures, and alliances. He is a three time book author in mergers and acquisitions and has written several articles for the same.

Carlos Gamez is the senior director of innovation for Thomson Reuters’ Legal Business where he partners with individuals to define the innovation strategy and to execute innovation priorities through strategic projects with the potential to drive organic growth.

Bill O’Boyle founded North State Consulting and has an extensive background developing business models and negotiating at the executive level with global companies such as Sony , Fujitsu, Canon, Citrix, Worldox, Smarsh, Applied Systems, Lexis Nexis, Cicayda, Jostle, and mxHero. He was also a three time invitee of the AICPA’s Executive Roundtable.

David Coffey was named SVP, chief digital officer of LegalShield in November, 2016. Prior to that, he was president of The Coffey Group where he served several clients including NBC Universal’s Biggest Loser, Meredith’s Hyper Factory/New Media Strategies, Engauge, Mr. Youth, and StrikeForce Communications. His past client list includes Allstate, Travelers Direct, Mercedes, Harrah’s, Career Education, CSI Direct, Chrysler, Charles Schwab, Edward-Jones, Janus Funds, Jockey, Bissell, HBO, Discovery Communications, Citi Bank, Virgin Charter, U.S. Post Office, Department of Homeland Security, and Mitsubishi Motors.

Dean Sonderegger leads the Legal Markets Group of Wolters Kluwer Legal and Regulatory US where he is responsible for accelerating the vision and strategy for the Legal Markets and Innovation teams. He has more than 25 years of experience working in the tax and legal software and services industries.