The new year has begun with a significant development in the legal business consulting space: a merger between two of the most recognized United States companies providing business coaching and technology consulting to law firms. The resulting combined entity comprises nearly 100 professionals with extensive expertise across diverse sectors of law, serving small and midsize law firms in particular.
Lawyerist Media LLC, which originated as a blog in 2008 and evolved into a prominent business coaching and training provider for small law firms, is joining forces with Affinity Consulting Group LLC, a leading provider of strategic business and technology implementation consulting for law firms and legal departments.
Unified Vision for Healthier Firms
The companies characterized the merger as “two brands, one team, healthier firms.” They stated that their combined resources will better position them to offer a wide array of industry experts capable of assisting legal organizations of all sizes and at every stage of development in establishing healthier operations. This support includes working with legal teams to:
- Define their businesses through strategic consulting and instruction.
- Build their businesses through business and technology implementation.
- Perfect their businesses through continuing training and business coaching.
“We see tremendous opportunity,” said Affinity cofounder and managing partner Debbie Foster, who will assume the role of CEO for the newly merged company. “We are excited about the exceptional services both brands offer the legal community.”
Foster added, “This merger allows us to meet every firm where they are, dissect their issues, and provide them with the exact level of service they need—whether it is developing a business strategy, implementing technology, or ongoing coaching and business support.”
Leadership and Brand Continuity
Lawyerist will maintain its presence as a standalone brand and continue its existing service offerings. All nine of its employees will transition to Affinity, including Stephanie Everett, who joined Lawyerist in 2018 and became its CEO last year. Furthermore, Aaron Street, Lawyerist’s cofounder and former CEO, who stepped down from that role last year, is rejoining the organization.
Both Everett and Street will become partner-owners and members of the leadership team at Affinity. Everett will focus on the future development of product and service offerings, while Street will serve in a role concentrating on strategy and growth, similar to a Chief Financial Officer.
“It might not look like much has changed for many of the lawyers in our community, but they will all benefit from the additional expertise and resources the Affinity team brings to the table,” said Everett. She emphasized that Affinity’s resources will enable the team to develop more tools and services to assist small firms in creating future focused organizations.
Background on the Merging Entities
Lawyerist originated in 2008 as a blog created by Sam Glover, who was then a practicing lawyer in Minneapolis. Initially focused on technology for solo and small law firms, he relaunched it as Lawyerist on August 24, 2008. At the time, Glover explained that a “lawyerist” is “one who lawyers,” and that the blog was intended to function as “a lawyering manual—or survival guide, depending on how you look at it.”
Street joined the company in 2009 and served as CEO from 2016 to 2021. He was instrumental in developing Lawyerist into a comprehensive coaching and resources company for solo and small firms. Its business operations include Lawyerist Lab, a paid coaching community; the Lawyerist website, a leading resource for small firm articles and materials; a popular weekly podcast; and the book, The Small Firm Roadmap. Glover departed the company in 2020, and Street stepped down as CEO last year, at which point Everett assumed the role.
Affinity Consulting Group was established in 2000 by Foster and three other law firm consultants: Steven Best, Barron Henley, and Paul Unger, who initially connected at a software conference in Toronto. Today, Affinity’s roster of consultants and partners features numerous individuals whose frequent writing and speaking engagements make them well known within the legal technology community.
Commitment to Future Growth
In a recent interview, Foster and Everett chose not to disclose the financial terms of the merger, only confirming that both Everett and Street will join the merged company as owners.
“Aaron and I have a vested interest in the company going forward,” Everett stated. “This is not a deal where we are getting some cash and leaving. It is just the opposite, where we are doubling down and really excited about building the company for the future.”
Everett acknowledged that Lawyerist had always been a “small but mighty team,” but the merger will provide significantly more resources and expertise. “There are so many things we want to do, and we often felt that with more help, we could do more. This is growing our team ten times stronger, overnight; we are going from ten to 100.”
Expanded Client Service Opportunities
Both Foster and Everett view the merger as creating numerous opportunities to enhance service to their respective client bases. Lawyerist primarily serves solo and small firms. Affinity’s typical clients are firms with 10 to 50 lawyers, though their reach extends from solo practitioners to large firms, government agencies, and corporate legal departments.
Foster noted that even prior to the merger, Affinity had been exploring ways to expand its services to incorporate the type of coaching Lawyerist provides. Certain Affinity services, such as technology implementation for a law firm, are often provided on a short term, project specific basis. Affinity sought ways to “really get in there with them to help them be able to create the healthy firm that they are really proud of.”
The merger enables both leaders to expand this coaching model across a wider range of firms.
“We do so much project work for our clients and we do not always have the opportunity to offer them the longer term, longer tail, relationship that they need to help them make the changes they need to make to get where they want to go,” Foster explained. “Lawyerist has perfected that and their people have perfected that and have put together something that I think so many of our clients are hungry for—that methodology for what makes up a successful firm.”
Simultaneously, while the merger allows Affinity to integrate Lawyerist’s coaching model into a broader context, it also enables Lawyerist to utilize its experience in delivering services at scale to bring Affinity’s expertise to solo and small firms in new ways.
“We can take some of the knowledge and expertise that Affinity has in tech implementation, for example, and take what Lawyerist does really well, which is deliver services at scale, and now we can marry those and help small firms who do not need or cannot invest thousands of dollars with an implementation package,” Everett said.
Immediate Plans and Future Scale
For the immediate future, the combined company will focus on integrating the two teams and planning. Clients should therefore not anticipate any new product or service announcements until at least the second quarter of the year.
However, two pre existing projects are being announced this month. One is a new podcast, Powerful Leaders, No Apologies, launching this week. Hosted by Foster and Beth Thompson, Affinity’s director of client engagement, it will focus on women in legal “owning their power and changing the world.” The other is the release of The Small Firm Roadmap Revisited, the second edition of Lawyerist’s book on building a successful law firm.
Everett emphasized that the merger’s ultimate value lies in adding even greater depth to what she describes as “two powerhouses” of experts in the legal industry.
“We are now going to be able to say to our community, ‘Learn even more, learn more of the things you did not know.’ If I look at my expertise, it is more in business strategy. But now we are going to be able to offer everything down to how to use Word the right way.”
Foster views this added depth as a significant opportunity for scale.
“You hear, I am sure, the same stories that I hear about the struggles that people are having running their firms these days,” Foster said. “They need a process, they need a methodology, they need a system—whatever you want to call it, every firm needs that. So if we can scale the products and services that we have and the Lawyerist’s products and services can be scaled, we really can meet everyone where they are. And that is what we are hoping that we do.”
