Law Firm Private Equity Investments Grow With Hargrove Deal (1)

The Hargrove law firm, which specializes in estate planning, aims to benefit from a private equity investor taking a stake in its tech platform, becoming the latest legal services provider to access non-traditional forms of capital support.

Conditor Equity finalized an agreement Dec. 5 to invest in NetLaw, a digital management services organization used by wealth advisory firms to access Hargrove Firm’s legal services. Hargrove began partnering with NetLaw in 2022. The amount of the investment and other terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

“You’ve got to build a lot of technology and infrastructure—that’s the type of thing that needs to be done in a place like NetLaw that can access the capital markets,” NetLaw CEO Alex Hargrove said in an interview Tuesday.

The agreement is an example of how law firms are increasingly opening themselves to new forms of investments after resisting outside dollars for decades. Rules in all but a few states require lawyers to own firms, though operators have gotten around the restrictions by outsourcing administrative functions while keeping lawyers in charge of the delivery of legal services.

Management services organizations are formed as separate businesses and can be owned and invested in by non-lawyers, including private equity firms and litigation funders, because they don’t provide legal services. McDermott Will & Schulte chairman Ira Coleman said last month that his 1,750-lawyer firm was in “preliminary” discussions about accessing private equity investment.

Netlaw’s deal with Conditor ensures that the Hargrove Firm continues to be owned and operated by its lawyers, Alex Hargrove said. Joshua Porte, a Holland & Knight partner, represented NetLaw in the deal, he said.

NetLaw provides the software infrastructure used by Hargrove’s lawyers and clients. The company and Hargrove pair their services with wealth planning firms that collectively manage $250 billion in client assets, according to NetLaw’s website.

“To be able to scale up to the point where you’re doing thousands of estate plans, it required a lot more than investing the profits from lawyers’ partnership,” Alex Hargrove said.

‘Next Chapter’

Alex Hargrove’s father, Jamie Hargrove, is the founding partner of the Hargove Firm. Alex’s brother, Tucker Hargrove, is the managing partner.

“This partnership marks the next chapter in our mission to make estate planning better for families and for the advisers who serve them,” Jamie Hargrove said in a statement.

The Louisville, Kentucky-headquartered Hargrove Firm also has offices in Cincinnati; Pleasanton, California; Brentwood, Tennessee; and Lexington, Kentucky.

Los Angeles-based John Cochran said he founded Conditor in 2024 to invest in tech and professional services businesses early in their growth. He is Conditor’s sole employee, and he started the operation after a 15-year stint at Lovell Minnick Partners, a private equity firm known for investing in professional services and asset managers.

“There is a compelling opportunity to evolve the way legal services are delivered in the estate planning space,” Cochran said. He declined to comment on whether his investment gives him any form of control over NetLaw.

His investment will help expand the reach of the Hargrove-NetLaw partnership inside the wealth advisory industry by hiring staff and improving technology, he said.