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Leading Growth, Technology, and Culture at Magna Legal Services with Mark R. Williams 2-9-26
00:24:40
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- [00:01]
A
If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant, you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference. That's why hands down, you count on Grainger for auto reordering. With on time restocks, your team will have the cut resistant gloves they need at the start of their shift and you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:30]
B
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant leader. We're joined today by the CEO of Magna Legal Services, Mark Williams. And Mark has had a fascinating career. He's going to talk to us about that, then we're going to bother him some to talk to us about what Magna does, about some of his thoughts on leadership and a lot more. Mark, can you take a moment and tell us a little bit about both yourself and about what Magna Legal Services does and sort of the core of the business?
- [01:03]
C
Yeah. Scott, it's a pleasure to be here with you. Appreciate the opportunity. Yeah. So I was, I guess I am a lawyer, worked for big law firm, worked for DLA Piper for 17 years. I was an M and a partner at Hart. Spent eight, nine years of my career overseas, managing partner in China and Beijing and in the Middle east and other places and spent five, six of my last years at dla, not really practicing law but running the business in Asia and the Middle east and did my MBA along the way and all that sort of stuff and, and, and realized that I had more passion for running, running a business and thought I was a little better at it than, than the practicing law stuff. So now, now I've been running CEO of various private equity backed legal technology, legal support services companies since 2010. So I've been doing this for a long time now and I'm currently CEO of Magna Legal Services. Joined Magna in 2019. Magna was founded in 2007. Private equity bought into it, CIVC Partners, brought into it in 2018, brought me on board in 2019. We sold the company to Odyssey Investment Partners in November 2022. So we had a great chapter, great journey with Odyssey. Today we're about 1300 employees in 25 offices. We're one of the leaders in court reporting and digital court reporting, in records retrieval, language services. We have the largest jury and trial consulting business in the country. We are in service of process and investigations and a number of other odds and ends. So we Provide technology and services to support the legal industry. And that's really a wide array of clients. Law firms, insurance companies, corporations, sort of, you name it. So it's been a great journey.
- [03:13]
B
I mean, simply remarkable. And talk about this. You at some point moved to being sort of a chosen CEO by private equity funds. Talk about that evolution from lawyer to business leader to sort of running a huge professional and services organization and the relationships with private equity. Because one of the things that's happened is, you know, the first buyer into this company was cibc, then Odyssey. Sometimes when a new private equity fund takes over, they want to bring in new leadership. Other times they're so thrilled or they get comfortable with the existing leadership. Just take a moment on some of those relationships with private equity and that evolution of a career.
- [03:53]
C
Yeah, so it's a great question. I could talk for a lot of hours about it, which I won't do, but sort of, as I just mentioned, my last six years, five, six years at dla, I really was not practicing law. I was running the business in Asia and the Middle East. So for me it was a very natural progression to not going back to being an M and a lawyer, but rather to continuing to run a business. I like being in legal services industry. So all the businesses I run have been in that industry. Different parts of and different verticals within legal technology and legal services, but all somewhere within it. And I do use my legal background at Magna. We've done 19 acquisitions since I joined the company and we have a GC and a legal group and a M and a group and we use outside counsel and all that. But I definitely use my legal background and for running the business and to understand what clients need and want. And I found the private equity landscape to be an ecosystem to be a very, a very good fit for me. I found all the companies that have sponsored, sponsored my businesses to be just really smart, really engaged, add value. And I think it's all about alignment. It's all about. Do you align with the investment thesis? I was CEO of a company called Kroll on track. We were in 35 offices in 20 countries. But it was a turnaround. And people ask if that was hard. And it was hard, but in terms of the private equity, it was all about alignment and the alignment was turnaround. Whereas with Magna, it's all about growth, organic growth and M and A. So I think the private equity ecosystem is a great one as long as you're aligned with your financial sponsor.
- [05:57]
B
No, simply, literally fascinating. And I think that's right. And I found so many of the private equity leaders and professionals, especially in this period of the last eight to 10 years, where things have been a little bit challenging to get exits have been very hardworking, very thorough, very sincere, and largely a real pleasure to work with, which might not have been my impression 20 years ago when I was working as a lawyer with some of the largest private equity funds. And they were so New York based and so challenging at times. And now it seems like very smart people, really hardworking, trying to make things aligned and work out well. I think it's a fascinating process and evolution. Take a second mark. Litigation services and what you folks do since the intersection of law, technology, execution. What are the biggest shifts you see in how law firms and others that use legal services expect services to be delivered? What has changed in your business is AI and technology has taken such a bigger front seat?
- [06:58]
C
Oh yeah, I mean, no question. Technology AI has just become a bigger and bigger part of not just our business, but I think any business in the industry. We had a board meeting last week, I think we spent 75% of our board meeting on what is our technology roadmap in 2026? How do we make sure we're a leader in technology and it's all client driven. Right? I mean, clients are expecting technology to remove friction, to remove complexity. They want more speed, more transparency, more predictability, more integrated end to end solutions. And they want to know how you're using technology to do all that. And they want to know how it's going to reduce their cost as well, while at the same time adding more value. So I think it's very hard to be in this industry today without believing that you're sitting at the intersection of law, technology and execution. I think that's true for law firms today too. They've got to be leaning into technology.
- [08:06]
B
And your customers, who are your core customers that you work with? And I know you mentioned it a moment ago, could you tell us that again?
- [08:14]
C
Yeah. So our sweet spot is really large insurance companies, sort of. You name a large insurance company, they're probably a client for us. And then it's the law firms that work with those insurance companies. That's sort of a, sort of a sweet spot, but it's well beyond that. And relative to some of the other businesses that I've run, we have an extremely wide array, array of clients from AmLaw 200 to plaintiffs firms to sole practitioners in court reporting and records retrieval and service process. Again, it's really any kind of law firm or corporation in consulting, where it's mock juries and mock trials and all that kind of stuff. Tends to be a little bigger ticket where we're doing graphics and helping tell the story. But it's a really broad array of clients.
- [09:05]
B
Fascinating. As you've grown out your firm in terms of the culture of it, and you've been now the CEO there for seven, eight years. So for a significant run, a great run. When you think about maintaining quality and accountability for Magnet and what it does for its customers, what are the things that are not negotiable? What do you absolutely have to make sure goes right?
- [09:26]
C
Well, I mean, again, you can't let your clients down at all. I mean, you need to. If it's records or court reporting, you need to cover the job. You need to make sure you're there for the clients. You need to make sure that you're delivering for the clients. And if it's consulting, you need to make sure you're adding value, whether it's grass graphics or technology or mock trials. So we're very clear about who we are, how we want to show up for the client. We have a very clear mission, vision, values. Our vision is to make every case outcome a success. Our mission is exceptional people delivering exceptional solutions to help our clients focus on what matters most, which is winning. So we are very clear on our mission or vision, the values to get there and holding people accountable for that.
- [10:16]
B
Take a moment and you guys have built this great business, went through a transaction, through complicated times, through the COVID period time as well, where people weren't exiting and entering as much. Talk a little bit about how do you add extra value for clients, added value even in terms of uncertainty, in terms of challenges and so forth, how do you keep on coming to the plate and adding great value for clients?
- [10:44]
C
It's hard. No, no, no doubt about that. We really try to get as much from all of our employees as possible. And a challenge that we have. At Magna, we're clearly not the only business like this, but we have a very wide variety of employees. We have everybody from. In our consulting group, it's mostly PhDs and lawyers. In other parts of our business, it's folks calling for records or the people trying to organize court or other services. So it's really about how do we bring the right labor and the right technology together for client needs. And then we have a huge 1099 network. Right. So a lot of the services we provide, court reporters, for example, are all 1,099. They're not W2. So again, it's how do we bring the right skill set and the right people along with the right technology to deliver client value?
- [11:42]
B
Thank you. Mark, you've done both a lot of organic growth and I think you've done a whole number of acquisitions since you've been at the helm. How do you decide what to pursue in terms of growth, whether organic or opportunities or acquisitions? How do you decide what to pursue? And as Peter Drucker would say, just as importantly, what not to pursue? How do you look at that?
- [12:04]
C
Yeah, I mean, that's a great quote. Right? So strategy is, you just mentioned, Scott, is not only about what do we pursue, but it's about what do we not pursue. It's about deciding what do we do and how do we allocate our resources. So we have our North Stars, we call my North Stars and we have our mission, vision, values. So it's about trying to be disciplined and focused on sticking with those North Stars, sticking with that mission and vision, but being opportunistic at the same time. So organic growth is clear. We have a very strong, strong and robust sales machine that is out there pounding the pavement every day and trying to push organic growth. And we have an M and A team. So we are constantly looking at acquisitions and some are right down the fairway if they're in court reporting or consulting or records and others are in adjacencies. And that's how we got into investigations and service of process and again, trying to look at does it fit our sales motion? Does it fit with our client needs? Does it fit our delivery model? Does it fit with our technology and our core strengths? But I know for me personally it is definitely a challenge because it's easy to see a shiny object and want to go after it. But trying to be discipline and focused is, I think it's hard.
- [13:28]
B
Let me ask you a follow up question. You mentioned you end up in adjacencies. I'm a huge fan of this book I read 100 years ago that keep coming back to called Profit from the Core, which is to keep on working close to your adjacencies and then where do you decide when you see opportunities to double down, to pivot or abandon? How do you think about that and any examples from your thinking?
- [13:51]
C
Yeah, sure. So if it's in an existing service we have, then it's sort of easy as long as we're looking for healthy companies. So I've done a lot of distress work in my career, which is all great, but that's not what we're doing. At Magna, we're looking for healthy companies and combining with those companies. But if it's in an adjacency, if it's in an area we're not in, we're looking first and foremost, does it fit our sales motion? So are we talking to the right person, the right kind of companies at the right clients and the right person at those companies. So, for example, most of what we do is somehow related to disputes. Whether it's service of process or court reporting or, or a mock trial or graphics around it, it's mostly related to disputes of some kind. So on the, on the corporate side or contracts, it's just an area we're not in because, because we're not really, we don't really have the relationships with those people at our clients. So. So it really starts with the sales motion and then from there it goes to the business model and the delivery model. Does it fit what we think we're good at? Does it fit the kind of delivery model that we're, we're accustomed to providing? And does it add value to our client journey?
- [15:09]
B
Now, I'm going to ask a couple more questions. Mark, you're a brilliant person. I've known you for a long time and always been sort of this incredibly reliable, smart, brilliant person. When you look at this coming year, I'm going to ask you about leadership in a second. But first I want to ask you this. What are you most focused on and excited about this year? 2026.
- [15:30]
C
Yeah. So first of all, you're, you're, you're really kind, Scott. Way too kind. But thank you for that. And yeah, I have known you a long time, so thank you. It's very, very nice to hear, particularly from you. You know, again, I'm an M and A guy at heart. I was an M and A lawyer. So our, our pipeline in M and A remains very robust. So I continue to be excited about doing more M and A. And I always think of those as combinations. They're acquisitions. But to me it's about best of both teams. Culture, service, process, technology. So I think that's a great way to grow and become a better company. But beyond that, it's really got to all be about technology in 2026. It just the landscape of technology has shifted and changed so dramatically over the last couple of years that I think it's become almost binary. We're either going to be a leader in our field in technology, which doesn't mean we're a technology pure play company. That's not what I'm saying. But that We're a technology enabled services company. We're leaning into technology and we'll become a better company for it, offer our clients more value, offer employees a better place to work and it'll help us optimize our value or we're not, in which case we lose. I think it's really almost become binary. I don't think you can be complacent in not leaning into technology today. So I'm excited about that, really excited. But there's risk and we need to have the right vision. I believe we do. But then we need to execute on it and there's risk to that too. And I think it's also really interesting to look out at the landscape and see these small startup technology pure plays versus companies like mine that are much larger and incumbents and have the distribution channels and sales channels and how those are either competing or coming together. And I think that's something to watch in 2026 too.
- [17:35]
B
There's so many pieces there I want to touch on. I'll touch on the last piece first. You talk about smaller startup technology companies that are often doing point solutions and point solutions can be great for what they're great at. But at some point large customers don't want to deal with so many point solutions. How do you as a larger incumbent sort of manage that advantage while taking advantage of some of the things that point solution companies do. Great, right?
- [18:03]
C
Yeah. So that's one reason we are again leaning into our technology roadmap is making sure we don't get beat by these startups and technology. And we can do that in a number of ways. One is we can develop our own technology, which we're doing in a lot of instances. Two is we can license and if somebody's got better technology out there, let's license it. Or we can buy, we can buy a company and acquire them and their technology, which again is very interesting to look at because a lot of these companies tend to be venture backed and have different expectations. But I think being in the legal industry it helps because legal is very conservative and a lot of legal players want a national company that can provide national consistency, national pricing, national delivery, all very, at a very high, high professional expectations. So that's something that we think some of these startups just can't do. So there's a whole number of ways we're really, really looking closely at all that.
- [19:07]
B
Let me ask you another question. I serve on the board of a private equity sponsored company and years ago we moved to outsource more and more things Overseas first outsourced through an outside company, then had a captive and the difference in cost and quite frankly the ability to fulfill what we needed to do for customers in that company was dramatic as we made those changes. And that seemed to be the next frontier at some point. It seems like now the next frontier is some mix of that plus a lot of what one could do through technology. How do those things, two things play together, that sort of use of overseas resources that are quite advanced, that are significantly less expensive than onshore resources. And I know they're complicated issues versus technology. And will that change some of those discussions or what does that look like?
- [20:02]
C
Yeah, Scott, I think you hit a great topic and it is again, this is shifting rapidly. So we have a couple hundred employees in India that support our business or they're actually not employees, they're an outsourced company. But a couple hundred FTEs and then a handful in the Philippines as well. And we started doing that because those resources were less expensive. And to be 24, 7 and all the good things you see with outsourcing and we're going to continue those relationships. But it will change. It is changing. I mean our outsourcing partners, they're bringing more technology to the table and we're bringing more technology to the table. So the way we use those resources is definitely, is definitely going to change over time and something that is part of our roadmap.
- [20:55]
B
Thank you. No, I love that. And Mark, one more question. You've had this incredible professional and leadership career. Take a moment on what advice would you give to evolving leaders? Take one moment on that and then I'm going to actually ask you another question after that. So bear with me. But the first question is what advice to emerging leaders?
- [21:18]
C
Yeah. So I take opportunity where you see it from a career perspective. Again, when I was young partner, I guess at my law firm, I had an opportunity to move to Asia, to move to the Middle East. Some folks thought I was a little crazy for doing that. It was a huge catalyst in my career for where I am today to running private equity backed companies. My career as a CEO doing that now because I took those opportunities and I think you need to grab onto them when you can and then also sometimes be willing to take a step sideways if you need to. I mean, when I left my law firm for the first time, I took a job that was probably half of my cash comp. But I got this thing called stock incentives which was venture backed and there was risk but I took thoughtful risk and helped me get to where I wanted to go. I don't think there's a right or wrong. If you're looking to shift in your career trajectory. I think you need to take opportunity. And then also I think you need to be willing to put in the hard work and effort and show up. I just think there are too many folks today that think they can do it all virtually or all on zoom and just showing up, putting in the time, working hard, developing the relationships, there's no substitute for that. So I think it's, I think it's all that together.
- [22:54]
B
I mean, but there's a lot to that last point about just showing up every day and being reliable and being after it, isn't there? I mean, there really is.
- [23:02]
C
Oh yeah, there is. I mean, there's just too many folks that I know that they, they only want to show up online and they don't want to go on video or they don't want to go to the meeting in person or they don't want to stick around and have dinner and they don't want to work weekends. And you know, that's, that's okay if you want to, if you want to limit yourself, but if you want to, let's say, do the job. I do. It's, it's, it's, you know, full time, it's full contact sport and you gotta be, you gotta be fully into it for sure.
- [23:33]
B
Well, you, I mean, you really have to because you've got to take care of great teams to take care of great customers. And taking care of great teams and managing the strategy, managing the people is a very time intensive effort. Talk for a second. Mark, I'm going to ask you one last question and bear with me on this. If you were going to talk for a minute to your best customers, your ideal customers, what do you tell them about what Magna does and why Magda is a pleasure to work with?
- [24:03]
C
Well, I think you just nailed it a minute ago, right? It's about our people and our employees. And I've always believed that clients can feel a culture and they can feel when employees are treated well and they can feel when employees are happy. Our values are grit, integrity, excel, heart and own it. And I think clients can feel that. They can feel. Are they talking to an employee who has integrity and is putting grit into it and who's owning it? And that is so critical to delivering value to our clients, but also value to our employees so they can have fulfilling and lucrative careers.
- [24:51]
B
Mark Williams, CEO of Magnet Legal Services, thank you so much for joining us today on Becker business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. What a great pleasure to visit with you. Made my day. Thank you so much.
- [25:03]
C
Scott. Thank you. It's been really a pleasure. Truly appreciate it.
- [25:12]
A
If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant, you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference. That's why hands down, you count on Grainger for auto reordering. With on time restocks, your team will have the cut resistant gloves they need at the start of their shift and you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand. Call 1-800-granger clickgranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.