Originally recorded by Evolve the Law Podcast - July 19, 2019

Catherine Krow, former founder of Digitory Legal, is now the Managing Director of Diversity and Impact Analytics at BigHand. Digitory Legal is now BigHand Impact Analytics. To learn more about Impact Analytics click here.

Host Ian Connett (@QuantumJurist) brings a series of episodes from this year's Legal Geek Conference. Today, he talks to Catherine Krow, CEO of Digitory Legal, Former Orrick partner, and one of the Top 10 Women Entrepreneur in Cloud Innovation. Listen in to get first-hand details of her amazing career and her experience at the event. 

We're so passionate about it and I understand what it is like to be a practicing lawyer in the trenches and to not be able to answer these questions. So we are thrilled to be able to help them provide service to clients in a whole new way.

Podcast Transcript:

Intro
Welcome to the Evolve Law Podcast.

Ian Connett
Welcome everyone, back to the Evolve Law Podcast. We're live here at Legal Geek in Brooklyn, sitting down with my first guest of the day. We've got Natalie with us today, who's joining us as co-host. So Natalie, just say hi to our audience here.

Natalie
Hi to our audience here.

Ian Connett 
This is Ian Connett, host of the Evolve Law Podcast, and we're sitting with our first guest of the day Catherine Krow, who's the founder of Digitory, which I think has something to do with process management, mitigating legal spend, increasing transparency and all the wonderful things that we're trying to achieve here with this group at Legal Geek. So I want to thank Catherine for coming on the show to tell us about her company.

Catherine Krow 
Thank you so much for having me here, you are right that is a lot of what Digitory is about. We're a cost analytics platform really focused on bringing data-driven pricing and cost prediction to law. A lot of cost transparency and understanding and creating actionable data out of billing data.

Ian Connett
What made you want to focus on this particular pain point in the legal services industry?

Catherine Krow 
So I was actually a practicing lawyer for 17 years, I was a partner at Orrick for many of those. Ultimately, I was solving my own pain because one of the hardest things to do when you're a lawyer, and when you're a partner especially, is answer that how much question, with some degree of precision, and clients need an answer. In litigation, and complex litigation where we focus, it seemed like a moving target and I figured there just had to be a better way to give them a real answer.

Ian Connett 
So basically client says, what am I looking at in terms of financial damage with this particular litigation, there was a big pain point in being able to communicate that with any degree of certainty or predictability.

Catherine Krow 
Yeah, and they need to know if something's going to go off the rails and let's face it that happens. They need to know fast and they need to know why, and that really takes actionable data and understanding of what the scope was and measuring it well. So, giving clients what they need from a business perspective is a lot of what we're about.

Ian Connett 
How's it going? Do you have customers signed up? Have you just launched? How long have you been at this?

Catherine Krow 
So we've been at this about two years and the data piece that we're talking about, that's really the focus of what we do has been commercially available for a year. We've been very, very fortunate to have customers in the AmLaw top 50 and also in the Fortune Top 50 because we do serve both sides of the equation. It's important for clients to understand what their data means and its cost transparency, be able to use it to build alternative fee arrangements, and it's important for law firms to understand what number that should be and answer that how much question. So it's going frankly great.

Ian Connett 
What was that transition like going from, was it you said 10 plus years at a big law firm? What was that like for you making that transition from just being in the thick of big law to now being an entrepreneur trying to create and then sell the product into a new market.

Catherine Krow 
It was a massive transition. It was a huge cultural change. It was a big mindset change. I learned a lot very, very quickly on the Orrick name opened a lot of doors to really major thought leaders, sometimes because they were wondering what kind of crazy person walks away from the law a partnership to start to do a legal tech start-up.

Ian Connett 
Yeah, especially after putting all that time in.

Catherine Krow 
She's nuts, let's see what's going on. So, I was able to really understand from top-of-the-market practitioners at legal OPS and GCs and on law firm practice management, what was really happening was missing something. So the learning curve was very, very steep and we started small solving problems in different ways, testing the feedback, and what happened during that journey was I became a geek. A total legal geek and a complete data geek. And so I'm a lot less fun at cocktail parties, is basically what happened. But it's fascinating what is happening in this profession right now. What is happening in this market right now and being able to see the macro view, I love it. We're so passionate about it and I understand what it is like to be a practicing lawyer in the trenches and to not be able to answer these questions. So we are thrilled to be able to help them provide service to clients in a whole new way.

Ian Connett 
Welcome to the Geek Club. You're definitely welcome here anytime and welcome back on our podcast. What is your favorite all-time customer success story?

Catherine Krow 
So I'm a big proponent of alternative fee arrangements for complex legal work, I really think that's where the market is going but for law firms, they're really, really hard. A lot of that is about not having actionable billing data, not knowing how to price them, and then once they're set, not being able to manage them. One of the favorite things that has happened just recently is we've been able by just data management to take a fee arrangement that was going to be a challenge for the firm and make it a success story. Make it incredibly profitable and a success on both sides of the equation. So, really understanding your data and keeping it clean, and making it actionable, can take a huge loss and turn it into a win.

Natalie 
I just wanted to see if you wanted to share anything that's exciting or on the horizon that you're really excited about.

Catherine Krow 
We have been focused on litigation primarily because that's what I did for 17 years. It's in my blood, my DNA. But we are moving into the corporate space and that is happening very soon. So we are really, really excited to be developing around a whole other area of law and expanding what we do and you will be hearing more on that from us in the near future.

Ian Connett
Before we let you go tell us how can customers find Digitory. Can they give it a try? How can they learn more?

Catherine Krow 
So you can find us at digitorylegal.com. There's a way to connect with us through there, there's a contact us button. You can find us on Twitter at Digitory Legal. You can find me on Twitter, at CMPro and you can e-mail us at [email protected]. Please find out more, we do pilots, and we will be happy to talk to you and hopefully, you don't mind when I geek out about data. 

Catherine Krow
Thank you. Thank you.

Outro
Thank you for listening to the Evolved Law Podcast.