August 4, 2025 • 9 mins
I spoke with Keao Caindec, the Co-Founder and CEO of Clarra, a case management platform. We discussed how law firms are leveraging case management, ways that it can help global enterprises track litigation, the benefits of using reporting and analytics to measure and forecast, and how AI is affecting the way law firms and legal departments manage their dockets.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Welcome to Reinventing Professionals,a podcast hosted by industry analyst
Ari Kaplan, which shares ideas,guidance, and perspectives from market
leaders shaping the next generationof legal and professional services.
This is Ari Kaplan, and I'm speakingtoday with Keao Caindec, the co-founder
(00:24):
and CEO of the case management platform.
Clarra.
Hi
i'm great, Ari.
How are you?
Thanks for having me.
It's a privilege.
I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Tell us about your backgroundand the genesis of Clarra.
My background is in technologyand a variety of SaaS cloud
and hosting companies.
(00:44):
My business partner, who's an attorney,and I got together about three years
ago, sitting under some redwoodtrees out here in Marin, California,
and decided to start a company.
He had built software to help himrun his plaintiff's firm, and he
and I thought it would be great totake that and bring it to market.
(01:05):
The focus was really in building somethingthat was modern, cloud first, and easy
to use and integrate for law firms.
Now we're working with plaintiff'sfirms, defense litigation
practices, in-house counsel.
How are law firms leveragingcase management today?
(01:26):
There's a wide and varied setof use cases across law firms.
Some are using older technology fromthe eighties and nineties, trying to
get off of that onto newer platforms.
Some firms are using all- in- oneplatforms that have changed the way
they manage their practice, but manyare just using spreadsheets and Google
(01:51):
Docs and Calendar to manage cases.
The challenge comes in really takingadvantage of where technology is
going, where AI is going vis-a-vis thisolder, more siloed set of technologies.
How can a case management platformhelp a small enterprise, a global
(02:11):
enterprise in legal track its litigation?
Clarra is optimized for litigation
and it's designed to followa litigation process.
It is very different tracking alitigation case for a smaller firm
that might be tracking personalinjury cases versus a firm
handling class action anda firm with Very large
(02:35):
global class action cases.
Smaller firms need something that'ssimple to use that gives them the
visibility that they need, as well as allof the controls of managing docketing,
calendars, timekeeping, and billing.
Larger firms have more complexitybecause the sheer volume is larger
(02:56):
and they're using other systems.
So, it has to integrate with documentmanagement systems, their backend billing.
For the larger firms, it was reallyas much about integration into their
processes and other systems as itis about the case management itself,
so critical to be able to integrate.
(03:18):
In-house counsel they struggle as we've
seen and been able to helpfirms with managing what we call
global contingent liability.
Their settlements and estimateddamages around the world,
across many different countries.
That is very hard to do and it'scompounded by the fact that the tools
(03:40):
that they're using, spreadsheets,other proprietary systems are very
different oftentimes by country,so to consolidate all of that
information has been very difficultfor those organizations in particular.
We are working with some of the largestconsulting companies, global risk
management companies, and large law firmsor large enterprises to address that.
(04:04):
For example, we're working with afinancial services firm in the UK dealing
with securities litigation, helping themto have a clear view of all of their
litigation across Europe and to understandexactly where they are, the amount of
costs per case relative to the estimateddamages or liability that they would have,
(04:29):
make better decisions about how to managethat overall liability, and manage the
amount of cash that they need to keep inreserves to meet regulatory requirements.
How are law firms and legal departmentsusing this type of reporting and analytics
to measure and forecast their businesses?
(04:53):
Many are using Power BI and analyticstools doing their own analysis.
While Many law firms have a lot ofaccounting information, timekeeping, and
other data, they struggle with pullingall of that information together to do
budgeting or pricing for a new client orlooking at profitability by practice area.
(05:18):
With Clarra, we have a very robustanalytics and business intelligence
platform built with Domo, and we can pullall of the information within Clarra, as
well as other systems, and create veryrich charts and interactive BI systems
(05:42):
to help them answer questions like,what is my utilization across the firm?
And how efficient are we in this practicearea versus another practice area?
Or, look at profitability by matter.
Now, a lot of law firms that areespecially successful don't really
understand their profitabilityby matter or by practice area.
(06:06):
That profitability gets masked bya few cases that are very large.
We help law firms to take a portfoliomanagement approach to understand which
practice area, which types of cases arereally driving great profitability and
where they're efficient, which ones arenot, and which ones they should really
(06:30):
cut short or perhaps not pursue because atthe end of the day, their expenses exceed
the recovered amount based on the damages.
How is artificial intelligence affectingthe way law firms and legal departments
manage their litigation dockets?
AI is one of those things whereI feel like it's one step forward
(06:53):
and three steps back right now.
We were very excited about it at first,and many technology companies, legal
tech companies, and law firms adoptedit quickly especially in e-discovery
or summarization, extraction, analysis.
What we are seeing now is aslight pullback where there
these firms are struggling with,what can we do beyond that?
(07:17):
And it comes back to, how do weintegrate AI into our systems?
What they're finding is their systemsare older and more siloed, make it
difficult to really use AI, so it'sa collision between old and new tech.
There are uses I think where there willbe a lot of opportunity in reducing the
(07:39):
amount of time spent on non-billableactivities and also in using AI to draw
better insights around strategy forcases as well, moving beyond the initial
summarization and extraction use cases.
Where do you see litigation headed?
(08:02):
Litigation is increasing.
In the US, There's the overturn of theChevron Doctrine making it easier for
companies to pursue class actions insome areas because it overturned the
ability of forcing companies to go tothe agencies to rule on those things.
(08:23):
In Europe, you have the RepresentativeAction Directive, which forms more of
a structure for class action cases.
Different countries like Thailandare now growing in that area.
So, right now, litigation in generalis increasing and enterprises see
(08:44):
more uncertainty and more classaction or employment litigation.
Litigation firms they'll need to comeup with other ways of thinking about
how they bill their clients, how theytrack their overall contribution,
probably more contingency-basedand outcome-based billing models.
(09:05):
AI is going to dramatically changethe face of certain aspects of
it, but it's gonna take a longertime than we're expecting.
This is Ari Kaplan speaking withKeao Caindec, the co-founder and
CEO of the case management platform,Clarra Keao, thanks so very much.
Thanks, Ari.
(09:27):
Thank you for listening to theReinventing Professionals Podcast.
Visit reinventing professionals.com orari kaplan advisors.com to learn more.
Welcome to Reinventing Professionals,a podcast hosted by industry analyst
Ari Kaplan, which shares ideas,guidance, and perspectives from market
leaders shaping the next generationof legal and professional services.
This is Ari Kaplan, and I'm speakingtoday with Keao Caindec, the co-founder
(00:24):
and CEO of the case management platform.
Clarra.
Hi
i'm great, Ari.
How are you?
Thanks for having me.
It's a privilege.
I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Tell us about your backgroundand the genesis of Clarra.
My background is in technologyand a variety of SaaS cloud
and hosting companies.
(00:44):
My business partner, who's an attorney,and I got together about three years
ago, sitting under some redwoodtrees out here in Marin, California,
and decided to start a company.
He had built software to help himrun his plaintiff's firm, and he
and I thought it would be great totake that and bring it to market.
(01:05):
The focus was really in building somethingthat was modern, cloud first, and easy
to use and integrate for law firms.
Now we're working with plaintiff'sfirms, defense litigation
practices, in-house counsel.
How are law firms leveragingcase management today?
(01:26):
There's a wide and varied setof use cases across law firms.
Some are using older technology fromthe eighties and nineties, trying to
get off of that onto newer platforms.
Some firms are using all- in- oneplatforms that have changed the way
they manage their practice, but manyare just using spreadsheets and Google
(01:51):
Docs and Calendar to manage cases.
The challenge comes in really takingadvantage of where technology is
going, where AI is going vis-a-vis thisolder, more siloed set of technologies.
How can a case management platformhelp a small enterprise, a global
(02:11):
enterprise in legal track its litigation?
Clarra is optimized for litigation
and it's designed to followa litigation process.
It is very different tracking alitigation case for a smaller firm
that might be tracking personalinjury cases versus a firm
handling class action anda firm with Very large
(02:35):
global class action cases.
Smaller firms need something that'ssimple to use that gives them the
visibility that they need, as well as allof the controls of managing docketing,
calendars, timekeeping, and billing.
Larger firms have more complexitybecause the sheer volume is larger
(02:56):
and they're using other systems.
So, it has to integrate with documentmanagement systems, their backend billing.
For the larger firms, it was reallyas much about integration into their
processes and other systems as itis about the case management itself,
so critical to be able to integrate.
(03:18):
In-house counsel they struggle as we've
seen and been able to helpfirms with managing what we call
global contingent liability.
Their settlements and estimateddamages around the world,
across many different countries.
That is very hard to do and it'scompounded by the fact that the tools
(03:40):
that they're using, spreadsheets,other proprietary systems are very
different oftentimes by country,so to consolidate all of that
information has been very difficultfor those organizations in particular.
We are working with some of the largestconsulting companies, global risk
management companies, and large law firmsor large enterprises to address that.
(04:04):
For example, we're working with afinancial services firm in the UK dealing
with securities litigation, helping themto have a clear view of all of their
litigation across Europe and to understandexactly where they are, the amount of
costs per case relative to the estimateddamages or liability that they would have,
(04:29):
make better decisions about how to managethat overall liability, and manage the
amount of cash that they need to keep inreserves to meet regulatory requirements.
How are law firms and legal departmentsusing this type of reporting and analytics
to measure and forecast their businesses?
(04:53):
Many are using Power BI and analyticstools doing their own analysis.
While Many law firms have a lot ofaccounting information, timekeeping, and
other data, they struggle with pullingall of that information together to do
budgeting or pricing for a new client orlooking at profitability by practice area.
(05:18):
With Clarra, we have a very robustanalytics and business intelligence
platform built with Domo, and we can pullall of the information within Clarra, as
well as other systems, and create veryrich charts and interactive BI systems
(05:42):
to help them answer questions like,what is my utilization across the firm?
And how efficient are we in this practicearea versus another practice area?
Or, look at profitability by matter.
Now, a lot of law firms that areespecially successful don't really
understand their profitabilityby matter or by practice area.
(06:06):
That profitability gets masked bya few cases that are very large.
We help law firms to take a portfoliomanagement approach to understand which
practice area, which types of cases arereally driving great profitability and
where they're efficient, which ones arenot, and which ones they should really
(06:30):
cut short or perhaps not pursue because atthe end of the day, their expenses exceed
the recovered amount based on the damages.
How is artificial intelligence affectingthe way law firms and legal departments
manage their litigation dockets?
AI is one of those things whereI feel like it's one step forward
(06:53):
and three steps back right now.
We were very excited about it at first,and many technology companies, legal
tech companies, and law firms adoptedit quickly especially in e-discovery
or summarization, extraction, analysis.
What we are seeing now is aslight pullback where there
these firms are struggling with,what can we do beyond that?
(07:17):
And it comes back to, how do weintegrate AI into our systems?
What they're finding is their systemsare older and more siloed, make it
difficult to really use AI, so it'sa collision between old and new tech.
There are uses I think where there willbe a lot of opportunity in reducing the
(07:39):
amount of time spent on non-billableactivities and also in using AI to draw
better insights around strategy forcases as well, moving beyond the initial
summarization and extraction use cases.
Where do you see litigation headed?
(08:02):
Litigation is increasing.
In the US, There's the overturn of theChevron Doctrine making it easier for
companies to pursue class actions insome areas because it overturned the
ability of forcing companies to go tothe agencies to rule on those things.
(08:23):
In Europe, you have the RepresentativeAction Directive, which forms more of
a structure for class action cases.
Different countries like Thailandare now growing in that area.
So, right now, litigation in generalis increasing and enterprises see
(08:44):
more uncertainty and more classaction or employment litigation.
Litigation firms they'll need to comeup with other ways of thinking about
how they bill their clients, how theytrack their overall contribution,
probably more contingency-basedand outcome-based billing models.
(09:05):
AI is going to dramatically changethe face of certain aspects of
it, but it's gonna take a longertime than we're expecting.
This is Ari Kaplan speaking withKeao Caindec, the co-founder and
CEO of the case management platform,Clarra Keao, thanks so very much.
Thanks, Ari.
(09:27):
Thank you for listening to theReinventing Professionals Podcast.
Visit reinventing professionals.com orari kaplan advisors.com to learn more.
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