Understanding Law as a New Asset Class

On Thursday, April 9, the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession welcomed a group of chief legal officers, managing partners, and senior investors to discuss “the past, present, and likely future of private equity investment in the market for legal services and its implications for lawyers, clients, and society.

The workshop attracted a world class list of participants from organizations such as Bain Capital, Bridgewater, Blackstone, Seaport Entertainment Group, Citadel, Akamai, IAC, Standard Chartered, LEGO, Wayfair, Liberty Mutual, GEICO, AGRD Partners, Burford, Paul, Weiss, Eversheds, Conyers, Skadden, Seyfarth Shaw, O’Melveny, Proskauer, Orrick, and Faegre Drinker.

We started the day by hearing from David Morley and Wim Dejonghe, two former chairs of Allen & Overy who are now working to facilitate private equity investment in law firms, Jonathan Molot, Chief Investment Officer of Burford Capital, and Maria-Pia Hope, CEO of AGRD Partners, about how to think about “law” as an asset class. They outlined how they see law as an investable category, discussed the economic and strategic logic, and showed how AI, data, and process innovation are making the sector more legible and attractive to sophisticated capital investors.

We then turned to a discussion with sophisticated investors about how leading capital providers are evaluating the legal services sector, including what is driving interest in law, which segments of the legal value chain (e.g., law firms, litigation finance, legal technology, alternative providers) might be compelling, and how to weigh regulatory and technology risk.

We concluded with an interactive, strategy-focused session among the senior leaders in the room about how the entry of new forms of capital may reshape the competitive landscape, what new governance and operational models may emerge, how client expectations are likely to evolve, and how organizations can position themselves strategically.

All photos by Lorin Granger.