After several years as a disrupter of traditional legal services on Bay Street, Conduit Law announced Monday it is forming a new legal entity with professional services giant Deloitte.
Conduit Law Professional Corp., founded by Peter Carayiannis four years ago, will now become Deloitte Conduit Law LLP and offer outsourced lawyers and other services along with Deloitte to support in-house legal departments as well as law firms, and provide support for short-term projects.
In a statement released Monday, Deloitte said it is investing in “new models” through affiliated law firms to “address the evolving legal requirements of clients.”
Carayiannis said the deal is about offering existing clients more services with a broader, national footprint.
It’s not the first alternative services firm to be consumed by a larger entity. Last month, Cognition LLP, founded 10 years ago, announced it was merging with U.S.-based Axiom.
Carayiannis founded Conduit after many years in-house as general counsel in several positions and seven years as a corporate-commercial lawyer at Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP.
A year ago, Conduit had about 12 lawyers on staff and clients included Cisco Systems. Many included chief financial officers and other C-level executives in companies that don’t have legal departments.
In August 2014, Conduit introduced the ability for clients to change the amount of their invoice to reflect their opinion of the value they received for the firm’s services with a “client value adjustment."
Carayiannis is also co-founder of StandIn Law, a location-based application that matches lawyers with other lawyers and legal professionals for court appearances.
In 2014, Conduit was a winner of a Canadian Lawyer InHouse Innovatio award for work it did with client Cisco Systems.
