SYKE and Calame announce today an exclusive strategic partnership that brings together preeminent legal innovation companies from the UK and France. The partnership combines market-leading legal tech and operations expertise with specialist knowledge of the French in-house legal market.Both founded by in-house lawyers, SYKE and Calame will help French corporate legal departments with all aspects of their legal ops strategy, as well as how to choose, buy and implement legal technology. By automating many day-to-day tasks, legal teams can create efficiencies and concentrate on more business-critical matters, therefore adding greater value to the organisations that they serve. Although not yet as prevalent as in the UK and US markets, demand from French in-house teams for legal technology has been compounded recently, as the current economic environment has led to the tightening of legal budgets.Launched in 2016 by Alistair Maiden, former Head of Contracts and Data Protection Officer at UK retailer ASDA, SYKE is one of the world’s fastest-growing independent legal tech and operations companies. Based in the UK, with teams operating across the globe, it employs over 200 legal technologists. SYKE’s clients include Unilever, HSBC, LSEG, easyJet and Springer Nature.
Founded in 2019 by Emilie Calame, former Head of Legal (France, Spain, Italy) at Dell Software, Calame is a specialist legal operations company based in Paris. It serves in-house legal teams across all sectors of the economy, at all stages of maturity, both in France and the US. Calame’s clients include Aircall (telecoms), Dassault Systèmes (technology), CMA CGM, CEVA Logistics (logistics), Vinci Energies (energy), CDC Habitat (real estate), and Ipsen (pharmaceuticals). Emilie Calame also established the legal operations arm of the French In-house Lawyers’ Association (Association Française des Juristes d’Entreprise, the AFJE) where she sat as a board member for 7 years.
Alistair Maiden, SYKE’s Founder and CEO, comments: “We are delighted to announce our new and exclusive partnership with Calame in France. Having the ability to speak the same language as our clients, both linguistically and technically, makes for a powerful and unique proposition in the French market.
“Our combined legal tech and operations expertise, married with Calame’s expert knowledge and experience of working with legal departments in France, will help us to better serve our French customers and technology partners.”
Emilie Calame, Calame’s Founder and CEO, adds: “With approximately 40% of large French corporates now having a legal operations function, demand for our services has grown year-on-year since our launch in 2019. Our new partnership with SYKE adds considerable scale and implementation expertise to our offering, allowing us to meet the growing needs of our clients on every step of their journey.”
SYKE’s partnership with Calame in France provides a further example of its international growth. In September 2022, SYKE announced the opening of its first office in the US with LOD (Lawyers On Demand), offering in-house legal teams market-leading people, tech and operations solutions. Their New York office is led by US Managing Director Lewis Bretts, former Chief Legal Engineer and COO at SYKE.
About Calame
Calame – The Legal Ops Company is the leading legal ops specialist in the French market. Working with start-ups, scale-ups, unicorns, listed companies, and the largest privately held French groups, Calame helps innovative leaders to build best-in-class legal functions.
Through strategy, technology, project management, and even full outsourcing of the legal ops function, Calame helps teams to drive change, and delivers on its mission of “making legal shine”. In the last twelve months, the team has built workflows that now carry billions of dollars in revenue around the world.
Their unique legal experience, combined with their technical skills and deep knowledge of the French market makes Calame the benchmark in the field, with a unique offering in France.
More information: en.calame.fr
Further reading
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- Legal IT Insider: SYKE partners with Calame to deliver legal tech & ops solutions to the French market – Legal IT Insider (legaltechnology.com)
- Law.com: Legal Tech and Operations Firms Join Forces to Target France’s In-House Market
- Village de la Justice: L’EXTERNALISATION DE LA FONCTION LEGALOPS SE DÉVELOPPE EN FRANCE
