Changing the Game - Financial Times Innovative Lawyers recognition to Fondia

Fondia
Blogs
September 29, 2015

Fondia logo table

This autumn and beyond Fondia is celebrating the great honor of being nominated as one of the top-2 “Game Changers” of legal industry, by the Financial Times.

This is already the second time that the FT has recognized us in their annual FT Innovative Lawyers award program; in 2013 Fondia won the award for Most Innovative Corporate Strategy in Europe.

This year the competition was particularly tough as a record number of firms were considered for the 10th anniversary of the Award scheme. Fondia’s success in the competition was based on the following cornerstones (not in any particular order as far as we know):

Innovative business model: LDaaS – Legal Department as a Service

In close partnerships with our great customers, we have implemented a ground-breaking way to deliver business-optimized legal services through our LDaaS – Legal Department as a Service model. Already more than 140 significant-size customers retain Fondia as their external in-house legal department, where we handle all or a specific part of their legal needs for a determined monthly fee. Scalable for any-size company, LDaaS combines the pragmatism of in-house lawyers with the expertise of specialized lawyers, with the named customer team. Customers can focus on their business goals, without worrying about unexpected legal risks or unmanaged costs. LDaaS has clearly responded to a need in the market – 97% of our customers would recommend the service for their friends.

Specialized service products, leveraging digital technology

We have also packaged various specific services into easy-to-use offerings. A free web database Virtual Lawyer ( www.virtuallawyer.fi ) is a comprehensive source of business legal knowledge. A popular workshop concept brings together several customers at a time for a high impact session; guided by 1-2 lawyers they create e.g., a mandatory training policy, clear guidelines for dawn raids, or a policy for fair and equal treatment of employees. We also have a specific suite of products targeted at the booming gaming and mobile apps industry, among others. Customer team workspaces, extranets, digital KM resources and e-learning solutions are leveraged for internal efficiency and high customer impact.

Fantastic workplace with fantastic Fondians

As members of the outsourced legal department for the customer, all our lawyers are experienced and directly advise them. Our flat organization and strong emphasis on teamwork support this. Our unique culture combines business-oriented professionalism, collegiality and sense of fun. We have proven that happy lawyers with a balanced lifestyle can provide the best customer' experience. We only employ people who want to cultivate our values. Fondia has been a proud winner of European-wide Great Place to Work in the legal industry, three years running.

Growth

No-one can be a Game Changer without solid financial performance, year after year. During the last ten years, we have grown from a one-year-old start-up with 5 people to around 100 employees, to ca 13MEUR in profitable turnover, from 1 to 9 branch offices in Finland, from Finland to include Sweden and Estonia as our home markets.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the customers who we are proud to serve, most of them in long-term and in close partnership. We law your business!

To conclude, I'd like to cite the FT Innovative Lawyers special publication, distributed from October 1 onward: '...the [story] for the next decade is likely to be how the profession deals with new technologies.' We at Fondia are working on changing the game on this front, as well.

How can we help you?

We’d love to hear more about your legal needs and talk about how we can help you solve them. Book a free meeting or call or email us.