Joint CCH & Exari Release
11 January 2001
CCH buys into [Exari] to Increase Software Solutions for Lawyers
Business publisher, CCH Australia Limited, has made a strategic investment in [Exari].
[Exari] is a specialist software company that provides advanced document assembly and knowledge management solutions to the legal market.
With CCH backing, [Exari] expects to fast-track their plan to become a global leader in their chosen niche.
[Exari] have created software that will allow lawyers to produce legal documents to a higher standard under tight deadlines and at a reduced cost.
The two founders of [Exari], Mr Jamie Wodetzki, and Mr Jason Harrop, said that their backgrounds in law, e-business and the information industries allowed them to match the best new technologies with the changing business needs of professional services firms.
Mr Wodetzki, CEO of [Exari], said that law firms needed a way to capture the legal and industry knowledge of its people so that it can be shared and leveraged more effectively.
"The preparation of legal documents is a lawyer's core business - they must provide high quality documents, tailored to the needs of their clients, as quickly and efficiently as possible," Mr Wodetzki said.
"However, currently the drafting of a legal document in many law firms begins with a search of the firm's database for a 'rough fit' to the matter at hand. Individual know-how is then used to tailor this document to the current circumstance, often by a combination of pen and paper, dictaphone, word-processor and secretarial assistance.
"The problems is, valuable know-how is not captured in today's word-processed documents, which means it's very hard to share. You end up with lots of lawyers working late, reinventing the wheel," Mr Wodetzki added.
Mr Harrop, [Exari]'s CTO said "Our SmartPrecedent technology uses XML and other web standards to enable much richer knowledge capture and sharing, and to automate many steps of the drafting process. This will mean lawyers can work faster and smarter, which is good news for them and their clients"
Mr Willem van Zanten, CCH Regional Director, sees the [Exari] deal as complementing CCH's strategy of linking the company's advisory services to the legal market with enhanced resources for lawyers.
CCH is the dominant provider of specialist tax, legal and accounting content in the Asia Pacific region and its customers include large international and Australian legal, accounting and consultancy firms as well as a wide range of smaller firms and businesses.
"At CCH, it is our job to provide our corporate clients, big and small, with a range of services and products that allow them to avail themselves of leading technologies to provide a more complete and efficient service to the customer," said Mr van Zanten.
"Through our corporate websites CCH provides an interactive service to thousands of lawyers in Australia and we can see the enormous potential behind the software that [Exari] has produced," added Mr van Zanten.
Mr van Zanten also said that CCH offered excellent distribution channels for the advanced software technology that [Exari] had pioneered.
Mr Wodetzki, CEO of [Exari], said that the investment from CCH will allow an Australian launch of their software in March 2001 and that they intend to enter the US / UK markets during 2001.
The [Exari] deal follows CCH's purchase last month of MAUS Business Systems, a leading business productivity software tools to small and medium sized enterprises.
Established in 1969 in Sydney, CCH employs 150 editors in Australia, the majority of whom are professional lawyers and accountants.
CCH Australia is a subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer, a leading international publishing group active in 26 countries and with a head office in Amsterdam.
Wolters Kluwer, which recorded net sales of EUR3.08 billion in 1999, focuses on legal, tax and business publishing, as well as international health and science and educational publishing.
In recent weeks CCH and leading international publisher, Butterworths, announced a major initiative that will allow their thousands of customers to access their online publications from a common platform.
Under the agreement, Butterworths and CCH will provide access to legal and tax publications within a single online environment, to be called "LexisLocal'.
[Exari] was established in 1999 and is based in Melbourne.
