Resources / Blog

Questel LegalTech Solutions reorganizes Ascent eDiscovery™ to provide exceptional value to the buyer’s journey at Morningside

Oct 13, 2022

WILMINGTON, DE and NEW YORK, NY( October 13, 2022) –  Morningside and doeLEGAL, both Questel Companies, reorganize their teams to leverage unique organizational expertise for law firms and corporate clients.

Bringing together the resources and staff of a top provider in eDiscovery and a leading legal language solutions provider for translation and document review creates the most comprehensive eDiscovery offering available and produces the best buyer’s journey in the eDiscovery market.

Reorganizing Ascent eDiscovery™ services under Morningside provides unmatched value and the convenience of end-to-end eDiscovery services to an expanding global eDiscovery market. Both Morningside and doeLEGAL are well-established industry leaders in legal language solutions, innovative technology, and service expertise. The newly reorganized team will leverage Morningside’s global presence amongst the world’s largest legal departments and law firms, and doeLEGAL will lend its expertise in data hosting, processing, and technology services.

Questel extends its LegalTech success by enhancing its eDiscovery offering to legal teams seeking a more tailored buyer’s experience with one provider that can offer a complete eDiscovery solution. Applying the best resources throughout the purchasing lifecycle allows both Questel companies to increase their value with a more efficient buyer’s journey dedicated to meeting clients’ evolving needs.

Ascent eDiscovery’s Combined Capabilities:

  • Document Processing & Hosting
  • Early Case Assessment (ECA) & Active Learning (AL)
  • Production Creation & Delivery  Hosted Document Review
  • Training & Support
  •  Language Translation, Transcription, & Interpretation Services
  • Analytics & Reporting
  • Predictable & Transparent Pricing

“Further combining our two companies’ strengths will provide the best foundation for our teams to apply their vast experience and skillsets. The goal is to provide the most benefit through the eDiscovery buyers’ path,” stated Bruce Kuennen, doeLEGAL’s president & CEO.

Ascent eDiscovery offers a genuinely comprehensive litigation solution to manage the entire process with a dedicated team of eDiscovery experts. The reorganization of resources on Ascent eDiscovery gives clients a more streamlined process for purchasing the best solution to meet their evolving eDiscovery needs.

“Together, Morningside and doeLEGAL’s combined expertise continues to advance our legal technology eDiscovery offerings, and this reorganization represents the perfect evolution of our strengths. Delivering expertise in a combination of technology, language solutions, and eDiscovery services now from one provider,” said Dylan Blaney, VP Business Development, Morningside.

Contact us to learn how Ascent eDiscovery’s comprehensive suite of legal technologies, eDiscovery services, and foreign language solution capabilities can support your litigation needs.

About Morningside

Morningside, a Questel Company, equips the world’s leading organizations with a full suite of end-to-end legal translation, document review, transcription, multimedia, and interpretation solutions. Morningside is globally recognized for its legal expertise and technology innovation in areas such as cross-border and patent litigation, international arbitration, M&A due diligence, FCPA compliance, and multilingual eDiscovery. Our convenient foreign language services cover over 150 languages and ensure that your most urgent projects are reliably delivered on time and on budget. Global 500 legal departments and 97% of Am Law 200 firms rely on Morningside as a trusted partner for their most important matters. Visit www.morningtrans.com for more information on our end-to-end legal translation and interpretation solutions.

About doeLEGAL

doeLEGAL, a Questel Company, is the enterprise-level provider of legal technology solutions and elevated support that gives corporate legal departments and law firms anytime, anywhere control over cases and costs to inform decision-making and drive more successful outcomes. Acting as their business partner, doeLEGAL provides clients valuable insights that reduce legal costs by as much as 50% and increase legal performance by up to 65%. Part of the growing portfolio of Questel companies, doeLEGAL differentiates itself as a leader in global legal tech solutions by providing “Smart data, intelligently delivered.” Visit www.doelegal.com for information on advanced Enterprise Legal Management and eDiscovery services and technology.

About Questel

Questel’s mission is to facilitate the development of innovation in an efficient, secure, and sustainable way. Questel is a true end-to-end intellectual property solutions provider to more than 20,000 clients and one million users across 30 countries. We offer a comprehensive software suite for searching, analyzing, and managing inventions and IP assets. The Questel group also provides services throughout the IP lifecycle, including prior art searches, international filing, translation, and renewals. These solutions, when combined with our IP cost management platform, deliver clients an average savings of 30-60% across the entire prosecution budget.

Resources / Blog

Introducing Morningside, a Questel Company

Aug 26, 2021

This spring, Morningside announced an exciting milestone in the company’s journey. It was such a transformative move that we think it’s important enough to share again:

Questel, one of the world’s largest end-to-end intellectual property solutions providers, has acquired Morningside, a leading IP and language services company.

Founded in 2000 and headquartered in New York, Morningside specializes in patent translation and foreign filing solutions as well as legal, life sciences, and corporate compliance language services. With a global presence of 250 employees. Morningside has over 4,000 clients in 55 countries, including many Global 500 companies, law firms, and regulatory bodies.

The acquisition is part of Questel’s strategy to act as a one-stop shop for all of its clients’ IP needs. Since Morningside is one of the largest patent translation companies in the world, the acquisition consolidates Questel’s position as a leading IP translation provider. Morningside also has a major global law firm presence which will allow Questel to expand and diversify its customer base significantly.

“Morningside is an excellent fit for Questel both culturally and strategically,” said Charles Besson, Questel’s CEO. “Translation plays a critical role in providing end-to-end integrated IP solutions to our clients.”

What’s next?

The synergies are clear. Morningside is one of the largest patent translation providers globally, and Questel is the #1 patent filer in the world. Clients of both companies will gain from this acquisition.

Throughout the integration process, Morningside will, of course continue to provide the same best-in-class service that clients expect. But, over the coming months, Morningside’s clients will also begin to benefit from the addition of Questel’s industry-leading solutions for intellectual property, innovation management, legal tech, localization and corporate collaboration.

Make sure you don’t miss any of our latest webinars, resources, and industry news by following along at Questel’s Social Media pages:

Questel LinkedIn - Linked Image (Ctr+Click)

& Morningside Social Media Pages:

 

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Resources / Blog

Morningside Announces Dennis Dracup as New Chairman

Mar 19, 2018

Language industry veteran joins regulated industry leader to accelerate emergence as a major global LSP

PRESS RELEASE: NEW YORK, NY – Morningside, one of the largest language service providers in North America, announced today that Dennis Dracup — a well-known language industry veteran — has joined the company as Chairman of the Board. Dracup has more than 30 years of operating and board experience in technology-enabled services and most recently served as Chairman & CEO of Language Line Services.

“We are thrilled to have Dennis take the helm as Chairman of our Board of Directors,” said Roland Lessard, Co-CEO and board member. “As a seasoned executive with hands-on experience in our industry, he has a ton to offer in terms of developing best-in-class technology, expanding enterprise customer relationships, and servicing the life sciences and health care markets.”

As Chairman and CEO of Language Line for fifteen years, Dracup helped grow and scale the company into the largest language interpretation company in the world. Under his leadership, Language Line increased its revenue tenfold from $40 million to $400 million – a feat he attributes to “hard work and focusing on the right industries and clients, with the best product out there to win those clients.”

Dracup says his top priority as Morningside’s new Chairman is to support management’s growth strategy. “I am excited to leverage my background and skills to help accomplish that,” says Dracup. “Morningside has grown leaps and bounds in the past five years and now truly has the potential to emerge alongside some of the largest global players.”

Dracup was approached by multiple LSPs and other businesses over the last few years after departing Language Line. “We know that Dennis had a lot of choices in the past eighteen months or so and we’re very proud that he chose to join forces with us. He has already become deeply engaged in our business,” said Tom Klein, Co-CEO and board member.

Dracup says he decided to return to the language services industry because language services are near and dear to his heart.  “This industry has gone from being fairly rudimentary, and frankly misunderstood, to a real requirement for businesses and organizations in servicing their customers and growing strategically,” he said.  “I think I have a great deal of relevant knowledge to leverage.”

As for the factors that led him to choose Morningside, he explained, “I really like the management team here. Tom and Roland and the senior leadership have the skills and motivation to take this company to great heights.  And it’s a lot of fun to watch them bring new thinking to language services and professionalize this industry as operators.”

Dracup is no stranger to regulated industry language service requirements.  Approximately ½ of Language Line’s revenue was from the medical and life sciences sector.  Dracup sees in Morningside’s client base and verticals the same sorts of stringent quality and accuracy and expertise requirements.

“There is just a ton of technical knowledge required to support intellectual property, legal, and health care customers and those clients have a lot of exposure so we have to make sure we get it right every time.  In these regulated areas, translation and localization fold into a broader suite of value-added services that our clients really count on us for.”

About Morningside:

Morningside is the fastest-growing major language service provider in North America and one of the largest intellectual property translation companies in the world. Specializing in patent, life sciences, and legal translations where accuracy and subject matter expertise are paramount, Morningside provides ISO 9001 and 13485-certified translations into more than 150 languages and offers end-to-end technology-enabled translation, localization, and multimedia solutions. Morningside is the trusted partner to thousands of organizations including Fortune 500 companies, Am Law 200 firms, and international regulatory bodies. Headquartered in New York City, Morningside has offices across the globe in San Francisco, Hamburg, London, and Jerusalem. https://www.morningtrans.com

You can find the full press release here:

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180319005970/en/Morningside-Translations-Announces-Dennis-Dracup-New-Chairman

Resources / Blog

Tom Klein and Roland Lessard featured in Slator

Oct 11, 2017

Morningside is proud to be featured in Slator, the leading translation industry website, where our new owner-operators and co-CEOs Tom Klein and Roland Lessard discuss why they entered the language services industry, why they chose Morningside, and their future plans for the company.

Enter the Operators: Morningside’s New Owners Bet Big On Language Services

 

In late May 2016, one of the larger language service providers (LSPs) in the United States changed hands. Morningside Translations, a New York-headquartered LSP that focuses on IP, patent, legal, and other regulated industries, was acquired by a group of individuals led by now co-CEOs Tom Klein and Roland Lessard.

The Engineer and the Banker

Mergers and acquisitions have been red-hot in the language services industry for the past two to three years with new deals announced weekly. But what makes this transaction different from many recent deals is that Klein and Lessard are from outside the language industry. They have taken over Morningside as operators, and not as purely financial investors.

The two have divided up their responsibilities. Lessard, a Connecticut native with a background in engineering, manages operations and related areas. Klein, who started his career at Goldman Sachs’ investment bank, has a more sales-focused, client-facing role.

Lessard and Klein met nearly a decade ago when they were both working at the background check company Sterling Talent Solutions. “Roland and I both served on the executive committee at Sterling,” Klein says. In 2009, “the company was around the same size as Morningside is today, and we grew it to USD 400m before we left,” Lessard adds.

Some of that growth came from acquisitions. Klein ran Sterling’s corporate development function for three years and says the company acquired about seven companies during his tenure.

In the middle of 2015, Sterling was bought by Principal Investment Area, Goldman Sachs’ private equity arm. Klein says the sale was a “logical time to leave” and move on and try new adventures.

Talking to over 50 LSPs

So what drew them to language services and why Morningside? Klein says, “I have to give credit to my partner, Roland, who found the language services space.”

The two partners saw that the language industry offered strong fundamentals. As Lessard explains, “We felt very strongly about the macro tailwinds driving the growth of the space — everything from the explosion of digital content to mobile internet adoption to the globalization of the world, and then where translation services is in the product life cycle.”

“We felt very strongly about the macro tailwinds driving the growth of the space” ― Roland Lessard, co-CEO, Morningside Translations

After deciding on language services as their target industry, what followed was an exhaustive process to identify and vet a suitable company to acquire.

“We spent the next year meeting with owners and ended up talking to over 50 LSPs and a couple of dozen industry experts, really diving in headfirst. That was a very significant effort to really try to get up to speed and get smart and decide how and where to play in language services,” recounts Klein.

Competition for LSPs with a certain scale has become intense over the past two years, with both strategic buyers and private equity firms alike competing for companies in the USD 20m to USD 40m range.

While the co-CEOs did not disclose whether the Morningside process was competitive, Klein shares that they liked the company for its industry vertical mix and growth track record. According to Klein, Morningside’s compounded annual growth rate has been close to 30% annually over the past five years.

“We ended up talking to over 50 LSPs” ― Tom Klein, co-CEO, Morningside Translations

Morningside has traditionally been strong in industries such as intellectual property, patents, and legal, where demand is often determined by regulatory requirements. Klein says they are also building out their life sciences business and do a significant volume of work in e-learning.

Exposure to regulatory industries has been sought after in recent years as demand from large enterprise IT accounts faltered with Lionbridge acquiring CLS Communication as early as 2014. Welocalize, RWS, and others are also looking for growth in those markets.

Klein is confident that growth in areas such as legal (e.g. cross-border litigation, international arbitration) or the life sciences (e.g. medical devices) is set to continue.

Geographically, Morningside is centered in the United States and has sizeable operations in Germany and Israel. When asked about Morningside’s top five target languages, Lessard lists Japanese, French, Chinese simplified, Spanish, and German.

Competition in regulatory verticals is fierce. According to Klein, Morningside’s top three competitors are Welocalize-owned ParkIP, Utah-based Multiling, and the language industry’s new juggernaut RWS, whose share price marks a new high almost daily.

No One-Trick Pony

In terms of translation management and productivity tools, Morningside chose to buy instead of building and deploying a combination of Plunet as TMS and memoQ for translation productivity.

But like so many other LSPs Lessard says they are open to using other tools if a client requires it. “I think being a one-trick pony when it comes to an MT or TM offering is a big mistake. We feel that you have to have the ability to connect to many,” he says.

Morningside sources from both individual freelance translators and single-language vendors.

A Long Game

Do the rapid progress in machine translation and related language technologies worry the two co-CEOs? Do they see machine translation as a threat, in particular in a vertical like patents and IP, where there are troves of well-structured reference corpora which neural MT models can feed on?

While Klein acknowledges that certain technical content in IP may be vulnerable to competition from pure MT, he stresses there are many areas that will continue to require human expert translators in the foreseeable future. “There are many elements in IP that are extremely challenging and where word ordering and syntax is unbelievably important,” he says.

How does the CEO duo plan to develop the company going forward? Lessard says their growth strategy is based on four pillars: pursuing organic growth; introducing new products and services into existing segments; seeking channel partnerships in areas such as e-discovery, forensics, or litigation support; and, doing acquisitions. On acquisitions, Klein says “the way we capitalized the business [we have] plenty of ability to do bolt-on acquisitions when desirable.”

“There are many elements in IP where word ordering and syntax is unbelievably important”

Unlike a financial investor who typically has a four- to six-year exit horizon, the two co-CEOs, both in their late 30s, are not planning to flip the company any time soon. “This is definitely a long game,” Lessard says.

Perhaps making a dig at crosstown rival TransPerfect, Klein adds that he and Lessard “have a lot of faith in each other, and we trust each other. The co-CEO model doesn’t work everywhere.”

To grow the business, the two operators have their work cut out for them. With no significant proprietary technology, they will have to make smart acquisitions and invest in their sales force to gain market share in their core verticals.

They will also have to increase the company’s international presence and plant more flags on the map if they want a seat at the table in large RFPs issued by big global buyers. This will require a significant investment in technology and in people and take up precious management time.

The competition will be watched closely.

https://slator.com/ma-and-funding/enter-operators-morningsides-new-owners-bet-big-language-services/