US managed legal services firm Harbor has acquired UK-based legal training specialist iTrain.
The deal expands Harbor's presence in the UK legaltech market and is expected to strengthen its ability to help clients realise a return on their legaltech investments through training designed to improve adoption rates and drive behavioural change.
London-based iTrain specialises in helping law firms implement new technology and has led technology adoption programmes involving Microsoft Copilot and other AI-powered tools. The firm says it has built strong relationships with major legaltech providers, including Aderant, iManage, NetDocuments, Intapp and Elite.
The iTrain team will join Harbor's enterprise solutions practice.
CEO Matt Sunderman said: "iTrain has built the most respected training and adoption practices in the UK legal market, with a growing AI enablement capability that is exactly what our clients are asking for. This acquisition gives Harbor the depth to support clients from implementation through to genuine, lasting adoption and it makes us a stronger global partner to our clients, with a meaningfully deeper presence here in the UK.”
iTrain founder Dorigen Sykes said the deal would give the company "a much bigger platform" from which to deliver its training, adding: "We built iTrain around a simple belief: technology only delivers value when people actually use it well. We're excited about what we'll build together.”
The acquisition comes as law firms continue to grapple with technology adoption. According to the latest Thomson Reuters and Georgetown Law State of the US Legal Market report, investment in law firm technology has outpaced the training needed to ensure lawyers and staff can make full use of those tools.
The acquisition is Harbor's fourth in the UK in the past two years. Last month, it agreed to buy HR consultants CE Global Partners, expanding its human capital management advisory practice in the UK. In 2024, it announced the acquisitions of legaltech services provider Ascertus, which provides implementation and support services for document and information management systems, and managed services provider Pinnacle.
Chicago-based Harbor was formed three years ago through the merger of business advisory firm HBR Consulting, legal consulting business LAC Group and legaltech specialist Wilson Allen.
Last month US legal education firm BARBRI agreed to acquire AI platform learning tool start-up Lega, helping to scale the latter’s experiential learning model globally.
The integration of Lega’s training platform will enable legal practitioners and students to build AI fluency through practical experiences, including workshops, simulations and hackathons.
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