With law firms across the country seemingly merging almost every day, it seems appropriate the companies providing the management software for those firms eventually would follow suit.

Earlier this month, European-based information services company LexisNexis acquired Juris Inc., a time, billing and accounting software provider based in Brentwood, Tenn. , for mid-sized law firms.

"Juris is pleased to be joining the LexisNexis family," said Stephen Collins, Juris president and CEO, in a statement. "We look forward to working closely with the LexisNexis management team and our customers to ensure a smooth transition."

The announcement of the acquisition was made earlier this month. Collins is out of the country and could not be reached for comment by press time.

For LexisNexis, the acquisition fits into the company's plan to expand its practice management offerings, said Holly Michael, spokesperson for LexisNexis.

"Juris does a wonderful job of getting into that market of law firms that have 15 to 100 lawyers, and so they really have a good market presence there with their products," Michael said.

There are no plans to release financial details of the transaction, Michael said.

Betsy Widdop, office manager at Memphis law firm Apperson, Crump & Maxwell PLC, has been using Juris software at the firm for several years. She said the move makes sense.

"It doesn't surprise those of us in the industry that Juris allowed itself to be bought out by LexisNexis," said Widdop, who has worked for Apperson Crump for more than 30 years.

Wheeling and dealing

With the acquisition, Juris became part of the LexisNexis Practice Management solution line. LexisNexis is a member of the Reed Elsevier Group PLC, which has offices worldwide and headquarters in London and Amsterdam. LexisNexis has customers in 100 countries representing about 13,000 employees worldwide. The company's annual revenue exceeded $2.6 billion in 2005.

"(Juris') leading position in the mid-sized law firm market and the strength of their product offering makes them a great addition to LexisNexis," said Ralph Calistri, senior vice president and general manager for the LexisNexis Practice Management solution line, in a statement.

The purchase of Juris marks LexisNexis' second acquisition this summer. In June, the company announced it had bought Omaha, Neb.-based Image Capture Engineering's newest product, LAW 5.0 PreDiscovery software.

Within the last several years, another big player in the marketplace, ProLaw - a provider of front-office and back-office management systems to the legal market - was bought by West Group, a division of The Thomson Corp. West's services include the online legal research tool Westlaw, a competitor of LexisNexis, with each vying for the title of top provider of services to the legal community.

With such competition, Widdop said, growth is inevitable.

"Consolidation has occurred in virtually every other industry and this is just one other factor that goes into the mix," she said. "You are seeing law firms merging and this is just another part of the deal."

Keeping time

Juris was founded in 1974 by M. Thomas (Tom) Collins. His son, Stephen, has served as president and CEO since July 2003. He will remain with the company, according to a statement released by LexisNexis.

Juris employs about 60 people in Brentwood, a suburb of Nashville.

What Juris does - and there are a dozen or more similar products in the marketplace - is make it easy for professional service firms to keep track of their time and then bill clients.

"Because they are specifically designed for law firms, they know how we like things to look and act and they know how we want to interface," Widdop said.

For instance, she said, Juris allows clients to be billed against retainers, automatically applying funds from escrowed accounts toward a client's bill.

The Juris product costs about $40,000 and includes training. The software typically is marketed to medium-sized law firms that range in size from five to 50 attorneys. Widdop said Apperson Crump was among their targeted clients.

For Widdop, the company's Middle Tennessee home and its close proximity to Memphis influenced her decision to go with Juris in 2002.

"They are a Nashville company, so training and all of that was a lot easier and less expensive than getting people from the other side of the country," she said. "But (more) than that, they had a very good product, and they are highly visible in the legal community."

Widdop said the attorneys at Apperson Crump have been very pleased with the software since they began using it.

"It has been quite good," she said. "Their service and support is topflight, their people are very knowledgeable and they have a good product that is very flexible."