Palo Alto, California—Nextlaw Labs, the collaborative innovation platform launched by global law firm Dentons, today announced its investment in QualMet, an early-stage startup that brings quality assessment metrics to in-house counsel and law firms. The investment marks the seventh company to enter Nextlaw Labs' portfolio.

QualMet provides a streamlined cloud platform and standardized process for in-house counsel and law firms to benchmark the quality of legal services across industry sectors, firms and legal practice areas. The company focuses on key performance metrics that are critical to delivering value.

"QualMet sets the bar by which we evaluate legal services and improves collaboration between in-house and external legal counsel," said Dan Jansen, chief executive of Nextlaw Labs. "We see this as an exciting opportunity to bring major law firms like Dentons and their clients into an important dialogue about improving and defining the quality of legal services."

The underlying concept for QualMet was created by Mark Smolik, general counsel with DHL Supply Chain, who has been using a prototype of the evaluation platform for the past eight years. "Legal departments tend to focus on managing and reducing costs, and much less attention is placed on the quality of legal services. It became clear to me early on that the legal industry was in need of a paradigm shift," said Mark. "Quality, and collaborative conversations about it, are two of the key missing ingredients in optimal value creation for both in-house and outside counsel."

QualMet allows in-house counsel to easily assess the quality and business value of their legal service providers, share results to align expectations and goals, use industry benchmarks to identify opportunities for improvement, and find the best-in-class law firms based on evaluations by their peers. On the other side of the equation, QualMet allows law firms to learn how clients perceive their contributions, benchmark their performance vis-à-vis other law firms and develop a strategy to improve and maximize business opportunities.

"The tension between in-house and outside counsel is in large part a symptom of the lack of definition of value and quality," said James Beckett, chief executive of QualMet. "Simply by making quality and value measurable and transparent, we can help both sides have a conversation in a common language. This conversation is about getting better together. It is about collaboration around quality, and solutions that drive more value to both in-house counsel and their outside law firms."

QualMet is currently being tested before commercial release by several companies ranging in size from a two-person in-house legal team to a Fortune 50 corporate legal department with more than 300 lawyers across the globe. In addition, a group of law firms including Dentons has been invited to discuss the output of the benchmarking process and the technology's applicability in their respective firms. The platform is expected for wider release in November.

About Nextlaw Labs

Nextlaw Labs is a business accelerator focused on investing in, developing and deploying new technologies to transform the practice of law. It is an autonomous, wholly owned subsidiary of global law firm Dentons with physical and virtual locations in technology centers worldwide. Through complementary and strategic partnerships with leading technology companies, startups, other business accelerators and established legal vendors, Nextlaw Labs invests in promising companies to develop a suite of new technologies that fundamentally change the practice of law, improving client service and enhancing client solutions. www.nextlawlabs.com

About QualMet

QualMet is a company focused on raising legal quality and business value between in-house and outside counsel. Through performance metrics and objective benchmarking, QualMet creates an industry-wide “common language” critical to value creation for both in-house counsel and law firms. As a common language around quality and value is established, collaboration breeding innovation, change and deeper relationships will take place. The QualMet process also enables in-house counsel and law firms to make relevant and insightful comparisons across industries, firms and practice areas. www.qualmetlegal.com

About Dentons

Redefining possibilities. Together, everywhere. For more information visit dentons.com