With its much-ballyhooed launch in 2017 and its backing by Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Twitch founder Justin Kan, Atrium said it would “revolutionize legal services” through its dual-entity model of a law firm and a separate-but-connected entity to provide back-end services and technology.
But now there are signs the revolution is at least partially raising a white flag. The company this week reportedly notified numerous lawyers and others who work in its legal services entity that they will be let go.
The reports suggest that Atrium will no longer directly provide legal services, but rather will focus primarily on its technology development.
One person familiar with the company speculated that Atrium will become a marketplace of special services for seed-stage and Series A-stage technology startups, with the services provided by third parties.
Reportedly, some of the lawyers being let go have been invited to offer their services independently through this marketplace.
I do not know when the layoffs will take effect or how many employees are involved.
This news follows the departure last April of Atrium’s cofounder and managing partner Augie Rakow, a former partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (just weeks after I interviewed him about Atrium on my LawNext podcast).
When Atrium launched in 2017, with an initial $10 million round of funding, I questioned in my Above the Law column whether it was a case of Clearspire déjà vu, recalling the demise of the strikingly similar dual-entity firm Clearspire, which opened in 2010 and shut down four years later.
But a year later, the company raised a whopping $65 million in a round that included some of the biggest names in venture capital, with Andreessen Horowitz leading the round and General Catalyst, YC Continuity Fund, and Sound Ventures as co-investors.
“Since launching Atrium 14 months ago we have made great strides,” Kan said at
