By Ari Kaplan and Doug Kaminski
Ari Kaplan speaks with Doug Kaminski, the Chief Strategy Officer for Purpose Legal, formerly Cobra Legal Solutions, an alternative legal services provider.
Ari Kaplan
Tell us about your background and your role at Purpose Legal.
Doug Kaminski
I have been working with attorneys in corporations and law firms, predominantly corporations, for 29 years, 21 in e-discovery and information governance. I’m fortunate to have been part of some really cool software and services companies that have been pretty revolutionary.
Ari Kaplan
Why did Cobra Legal Solutions rebrand itself as Purpose Legal?
Doug Kaminski
The Cobra name was a very good one for the last 15 years. Based on the results of the E-Discovery Unfiltered report, which is excellent, and other independent market research, we found that some people still associate us just with India. In the last five years alone, we have grown well over 500%. While we have about 130 people in India, we have 240 in the US and about 90% of our business is US-based so being characterized as an India-only shop is limiting. To broaden the impression in the market, we began considering a new name, and here we are with Purpose Legal.
Ari Kaplan
What does purpose convey about your approach to solving legal problems?
Doug Kaminski
A company name has to mean something and should represent the organization, so we started the process thinking about what we stand for. Ultimately, we are purpose-built as a company, specifically for legal operations, as about 80% of our business comes from corporate legal departments. We are also tech-prescriptive in that we will find or develop the tools that our clients need. And we are outcome-focused.
Ari Kaplan
What factors did you consider in the rebranding process?
Doug Kaminski
When we looked at our branding, we realized that we move with purpose and that was a key consideration that represented us. We thought about how we could leverage that concept to make our approach memorable and sticky.
Ari Kaplan
How are you ensuring a seamless transition in the branding?
Doug Kaminski
We are the same company doing the same good quality work, so the transition has a lot to do with communication. We talked to our clients and industry leaders in advance about the rebranding to incorporate their input. A good plan of this type should be seamless if it incorporates robust communication and proactive reinforcement of our core messaging.
Ari Kaplan
How does your branding shift align with trends that you are seeing in the industry?
Doug Kaminski
Instead of an alternative legal services provider, which is still an accurate term, I call us a legal operations outsourcing provider. Traditional LPOs (legal process outsourcing companies) focus on low-end commoditized services, including legal back-office functions. Given that over 80% of our team members are licensed attorneys, and that we are 89% diverse and 63% female, we are fit for the purpose of supporting global law departments as a legal operations outsourcing provider. In fact, at the 2023 Corporate Legal Operations Consortium Global Institute, we included the Cobra Legal Solutions branding on our booth and combined that with graphics and giveaways promoting Purpose Legal to organically spark a conversation about our vision for the company moving forward.
About the Author
Ari Kaplan (http://www.AriKaplanAdvisors.com) regularly interviews leaders in the legal industry and in the broader professional services community to share perspective, highlight transformative change, and introduce new technology at http://www.ReinventingProfessionals.com and his series at Legal Business World
Listen to his conversation with Doug Kaminski here:
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