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CaseHomePage moves HQ to Business Cluster

ONLINE LEGAL-DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SERVICE AIMS TO BUILD STRONG NATIONAL PRESENCE

ROHNERT PARK – A pioneering legal-document management service has moved its headquarters into the Sonoma Mountain Business Cluster.

CaseHomePage, the first case-specific online management provider in the U.S., has built a solid reputation among California’s judges and attorneys since it was founded in Petaluma eight years ago.

Now the five-employee company wants to leverage that reputation into a strong national presence, and the Rohnert Park incubator is the perfect place to do it, according to founder and CEO Warren Hernand.

“Here we have access to a very savvy board of advisors with a lot of business experience. They’re already making excellent suggestions. And we have room to expand,” said Mr. Hernand. “We’re delighted with the situation.”

With 20 years of law practice and several successful startups behind him, Mr. Hernand isn’t lacking in business savvy himself.

After selling a cosmetics company to Gillette and Marin-based Hernand & Partners Legal Staffing to Interim Staffing – now Spherion – he expanded an electronically transmitted court deposition service to include court reporting and then narrowed his focus to court filings for very complex cases.

Big cases such as class action suits can generate hundreds of documents over a period of years. None of the parties involved wants the others to be storing legal filings electronically, so attorneys generally agree on a neutral third party, or the judge may recommend one.

CaseHomePage is the neutral party of choice for most of the large cases that originate in California because of its customer service and reasonable pricing model.

The company has managed filings in cases like the Vioxx suit, Apple’s Nano iPod screen case, litigation involving Catholic clergy and currently the Anthony Pelicano wiretapping suit.

CaseHomePage has always outsourced tech support and marketing operations. Its case managers, who are assigned to manage each case from start to finish, are relatively easy to train. And the company’s software, provided by strategic partner Xerox Corp., is now in its sixth generation.

The company charges a $45 monthly membership fee per user in addition to a transaction fee of $6.95 per document, a pricing model that spreads the expense among parties who use the service but don’t file documents.

All would be well if it weren’t for what Mr. Hernand calls “the 600-pound gorilla in the room.” That would be LexisNexis, CaseHomePage’s only significant competition.

“They bought the only other company that offered case-specific management and folded it into their other products,” said Mr. Hernand.

Highly automated and charging three times the CaseHomePage transaction fee, LexisNexis nonetheless has national brand recognition. It wouldn’t mind having CaseHomePage as well, said Mr. Hernand, but he’s not interested in being absorbed.

Instead, with the support of the Sonoma Mountain Business Cluster’s advisory team, he’s fighting back.

“As they say in the army, we need ‘boots on the ground’ in places like New York and Washington, D.C.,” he said.

To that end he’ll seek strategic partners to market the service nationally.

“We’re already in talks with some very large providers of other legal products and services, including the largest national-court-reporting firm. They seek out the biggest cases, and they have salespeople everywhere,” he said.

Working closely with CaseHomePage to develop growth strategies are three handpicked members of the Business Cluster advisory board.

According to Jack Lance, a founding member of the Keiretsu angel forum, Mr. Hernand brought them an executive summary of where his company is now and where he wanted to take it.

“My background is in business consulting and building a business plan. I can also help him if he wants to pursue angel investment,” said Mr. Lance.

Michael Adler, founder and former CEO of the popular MotoPhoto franchise, is experienced at taking businesses through the incubation process.

And Shawn Jackson is principal attorney at the Law & Business Development Center at the incubator.

He’s contributing a legal perspective on possible strategic partners for CaseHomePage.

“Warren has the background and energy to take his company to the next level,” said Mr. Lance. “He listens, and he gets what we’re saying.”