CHALLENGE TO LEGAL TECH PROVIDERS:CLARIUS.LEGAL gets new shareholder structure and focuses on growth.

CLARIUS.LEGAL Rechtsanwaltsaktiengesellschaft is on course for growth. The legal service provider offers legal process outsourcing and legal tech services to companies. Up to now, the joint stock company has been active mainly in Germany and was part of the Schalast Group. This is now about to change. About the new shareholders:

The founder and long-standing director of the company, lawyer Dr. Georg Berger (54), is once again taking over the majority of CLARIUS.LEGAL Rechtsanwaltsaktiengesellschaft. Following a merger with an acquisition company, Berger, together with Dr. Johannes von Bismarck (57) and Nils Oberschelp (53), will in future hold approximately 90% of the shares in the company. Schalast & Partner Rechtsanwälte mbB will remain with a minority share, Prof. Dr. Christoph Schalast will remain a member of the supervisory board. With this step, CLARIUS.LEGAL Rechtsanwaltsaktiengesellschaft is deliberately opening itself up to other law firms for cooperation.

With this approach CLARIUS.LEGAL wants to grow nationally and internationally. A first cooperation was launched in Austria on September 1.

„We want CLARIUS.LEGAL to become the number one independent legal service provider in Europe. To this end, we will invest extensively in our product development and make even more intensive use of our strength in combining legal and technical expertise. While this is problematic in a traditional law firm structure, the new shareholder structure provides us with precisely this opportunity.”.” Berger justifies the decision.

Dr. Ernst Georg Berger
(Picture: Anna Dittrich)

Nils Oberschelp
(Picture: Anna Dittrich)

In many cases, legal tech has not yet gained widespread acceptance in legal departments because in-house counsel often do not have the time to use legal tech in the right way. But only then does technology add value. “Companies are looking for solutions to problems, not just more tech applications. The marriage of technology and law is something that only technology-savvy law firms can offer. We want to use this strength to avoid leaving the legal market to the legal tech providers.”

says Berger. Future independence is also crucial for the high-revenue area of legal process outsourcing. CLARIUS.LEGAL does not see itself as a competitor for traditional law firms. Berger emphasises that “CLARIUS.LEGAL is something like an external inhouse law firm with a tech department. We work like legal departments. We sometimes work on mandates together with traditional law firms, but we also work for law firms, for example on interim projects. It helps that we are no longer connected to a specific law firm.

About the new shareholders:

Johannes von Bismarck is a lawyer in Berlin and sits on various advisory boards of media and technology companies. He has 25 years of transaction and investment experience in telecommunications, media & technology. He is a qualified banker and holds a PhD in International Comparative Law (Humboldt University, Berlin and UCT, Cape Town). Nils Oberschelp is an attorney at law and has more than twenty-five years of management experience in the media and digital business. Nils Oberschelp is an attorney and has more than twenty-five years of management experience in the media and digital business. He has held management positions at Gruner + Jahr in Hamburg and Vienna, DPV Deutscher Pressevertrieb GmbH, Motor Presse Stuttgart and Delius Klasing Verlag, among others.