Ontra Alice Murray of The Drawdown wrote an exclusive article about our Hong Kong office opening – read it below:
Legal tech company InCloudCounsel has expanded into Asia following the opening of its Hong Kong office.
Speaking to The Drawdown, InCloudCounsel CEO and founder Troy Pospisil explained, “Our customers are global, and many of the private equity firms we work with need large, global scalable providers to serve them. We saw that and responded.”
InCloudCounsel was established in North America seven years ago. The company uses technology to modernise legal processes, providing end-to-end solutions for processing routine contracts and abstracting documents through automation tools and a virtual network of legal consultants.
“We started in the US and built relationships with the largest private equity and private credit firms, who more or less invited us to expand by serving them overseas,” explained Pospisil.
According to Pospisil, InCloudCounsel has continuously adapted to be able to serve its global customer base. “Initially we were serving global customers out of our US offices and that wasn’t ideal. We had to design our business intentionally to respond to local regulatory environments, language requirements, and cultural preferences. We also needed to develop the necessary finance and technology infrastructure, like the ability to invoice customers in different currencies and comply with local data privacy laws.”
Jason Frank has been appointed as managing director APAC, and Patricia Auer as director, sales. Prior to joining InCloudCounsel, Frank worked at the Hong Kong offices of Milbank, Kirkland & Ellis, and White & Case, and served as an in-house legal consultant for a variety of financial institutions. Auer was general counsel for a blockchain start-up and prior to that in-house legal counsel for global financial services institutions including Barclays Capital, Coutts, and Credit Suisse.
With locations across North America, Europe and Asia, InCloudCounsel can act as a single, global solution for multinational companies. “When it comes to processing documents, there are varying requirements in different countries. For a general counsel sitting in New York it’s challenging to ensure their different offices are maintaining consistent policies and standards, while also being responsive to the needs of each office’s regional team members and regulatory environments. As a global provider, we can ensure that for them. It is also incredibly valuable for our customers to track all of their documents and the associated obligations in a single, global reporting platform, which we are uniquely positioned to provide,” explained Pospisil.
Following the recent expansion, Pospisil said the company will continue to respond to customers’ needs. “We are currently onboarding our global customers in Asia who asked us to expand there; and then we’ll continue responding to their needs. I expect we’ll do something in Australia, but it will depend on where our customers are expanding.”
Our The State of Legal Technology 2022 report details key findings in the outsourcing and automation of contract management.
