Peer to Peer Magazine

48 Docker for containerization and Kubernetes for deployment. Docker is a platform that allows apps and their components to be packaged into lightweight "containers." These standardized virtual containers simplify integrations and deployments. Kubernetes is a system created by Google to manage Docker containers. To use a popular analo, Docker containers are like the shipping containers stacked up in ports and loaded onto ships, and Kubernetes is like the company that manages all the logistics of getting those containers delivered to their final destinations. At its core, Reynen court works with legaltech vendors to offer containerized versions of their applications and offers a toolset to purchase, deploy and manage them. "We also do some other things," Klein explains, "like provide a single control panel for managing the full life cycle of software ownership, subscription management, and provisioning – which today, if you had 50 applications, you would do in 50 different administrative platforms, each one provided by a different vendor. We built API connectivity to those vendors so that you can do all of that subscription and provisioning management in one place and just have it all work in a sound, reasonable way." In addition to a management platform, Reynen Court also provides a telemetry component. Klein explains, "we are building the plumbing so that you can measure all of the costs and usage of the apps - and also the compute power in the storage you consume using those apps - and then attribute it to matters or cases. So as you use more software, you are going to need a more granular way to track the costs. If you start using document review software to do due diligence on a big M&A deal, that can become a very considerable expense. Someone is going to have to pay for that. Either the law firms are going to bill it to their clients or they are going to come up with other billing models where they at least estimate those costs so that they can make a profitable business out of doing that kind of work." vote to rebuild the current data centers when they run their useful lives out, then what happens? If you are running the data center today, and your team, and your experience, and your expertise, is around maintaining servers and VMWare, then you have to really stop and think what is going to happen in 2023 or 2024, when Microsoft pulls the plug on Office and Exchange running in the data center, and requires everybody to move to cloud - which is clearly going to happen. Who is going to want to rebuild the data center when half the reason for having the data center just got yanked out?" Klein cites the 19 top AmLaw 100 firms in Reynen Court's consortium and says, "none of the CIOs believe that they will run data centers of any size five years from now." The second assumption is that applications are moving from a desktop model to a server-side model. Klein notes that currently the legal world considers many desktop-based tools mission critical. "The next generation of many of those same types of applications you will see appear as server-side applications. Their integration can still be tight. By 2023 or 2024 at the latest, I think everyone will be driven off Office and Exchange running in their data centers towards the cloud. And so by then I would imagine most of the ancillary apps that were with Office and Exchange will also be server-based." The third assumption is that as data centers disappear and applications move away from the desktop, the benefits of private clouds become increasingly clear. Law firms can no longer cite the security required by their financial institution clients as an excuse to maintain a data center. Many banks and federal government agencies have started moving to private clouds hosted by Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. Reynen Court's opportunity Renyen Court's value proposition is to help the legal ecosystem adapt to the world of private clouds and server-side apps by relying on two open source technologies: Law firm consortium Klein leveraged his contacts to pull together a consortium of 19 top AmLaw firms committed to Reynen Court's future as a company and its technical goals. Each of these firms has committed to a three-year period of collaboration with the company in order to facilitate a set of four goals. The first is to help the company better define its mission and deliverables to ensure it is on the right path. The next goal is that the firms collaborate with each other. So far, Kline notes, "we have had a great amount of consensus." The third goal is for each firm to deploy Reynen Court's platform. In exchange for this commitment, the company has agreed to wait on launching the platform to any firms outside the consortium until all 19 are deployed, allowing the firms to have a first- mover advantage. As of late October, 5 of the 19 firms were already running a beta version of Reynen Court's software, with others scheduled to go live within the next few months. The final goal in the collaboration list is for the firms to help Reynen Court work with the legal technolo vendors. Legaltech Vendors So far, 112 vendors have signed on to offer containerized versions of their applications on Reynen Court's platform. Some of legaltech's biggest vendors remain notably absent at this point, but Klein notes that the company is working on adding those to the roster as well. "The reception has been strong because we genuinely have gone to market in a way where we are solving problems that the vendors and the law firms share, in a sense. It takes too long for both of them to be able to reach agreements and launch proof of concepts and deploy the apps. The vendors see lots of benefits in containers because they can build software once, release the same software they build to support their multi-tenant SaaS offering. They can release it in a container, and the client can run it as a single-tenant instance even though it is the same software. So 'build once, run anywhere' really resonates with the software vendors because it is

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