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BDF Law Group Acquires NDeX Businesses from the Dolan Company

The Barrett Daffin Frappier Turner & Engel family of law firms has reacquired ""National Default Exchange"":http://www.ndexteam.com/ (NDeX), NDeX Title, and NDeX West from ""the Dolan Company"":http://www.thedolancompany.com/.

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The Dolan Company sold the assets of what it called NDeX South to Dallas-based Barrett Daffin Frappier Turner & Engel, LLP; Atlanta-based Barrett Daffin Frappier Levine & Block, LLP; and Barrett Daffin Frappier Treder & Weiss, LLP, in Diamond Bar, California. Collectively, these firms comprise the BDF Law Group.

The transaction, which closed in July, puts the law firms back in ownership and control of the back office business processing company that previously provided services to the BDF Law Group (NDeX), as well as the title firm (NDeX Title) and the western states trustee operation (NDeX West). These operations are all very familiar territory to the BDF Law Group, according to managing partner Jay Frappier.

The BDF Law Group created NDeX in September 2008 when the firms split their legal and non-legal operations into separate entities. The BDF Law Group sold the NDeX assets to the Dolan Company in September 2008.

These NDeX companies have long-term contracts with BDF Law Group to provide non-legal default services to the firms in Texas, California, Georgia, and Nevada. During the Dolan ownership, Frappier and the partners and lawyers at BDF Law Group continued to provide hands-on management of the NDeX companies. The NDeX operations remained housed within Barrett Daffin Frappier Turner & Engel's facilities in Dallas over the entire five year stretch in which the BDF Law Group was doing business with the Dolan-owned NDeX companies.

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The deal is beneficial to the BDF Law Group in that it gives the firms direct and complete control over their entire operations, where previously NDeX was owned by Dolan, a third party. This control offers the BDF Law Group greater flexibility and efficiency.

""Getting full control of our operations will allow us to reduce handoffs and to make more rapid changes in our process and our operations overall,"" Frappier said. ""We believe that these efficiencies should help us reduce timelines while ensuring we are in strict compliance with our client requirements.""

As part of the transaction, the BDF Law Group also acquired the proprietary technology platform that it built and has been using over the last seven years. Frappier also noted that bringing these companies back into a privately owned firm will help reduce some of its cost structure because the same regulatory requirements aren't in play with respect to Dolan being a publicly traded company.

""But most importantly,"" Frappier continued, ""this transaction will allow the BDF Law Group to maintain our high level of services to our clients without any disruption.""

The relationships between a number of industry law firms and their third-party back office providers have experienced difficult times whether through bankruptcy or other adversarial interactions, and these dealings have made their way into the press. Frappier says that's not the case here. ""We did not have any of that. We had a great partnership with Dolan and we wish them the best,"" Frappier said.

Dolan's decision to shed the NDeX assets is in line with the company's plans to move into specialized business technology for law firms and away from business processing and back office services. Dolan has reached an agreement in principle to sell the remaining NDeX Indiana business to its Indiana law firm affiliate, Feiwell & Hannoy, P.C.

Together, the NDeX South and NDeX Indiana transactions are expected to yield approximately $17.5 million, including certain cash at closing with the majority of payments to be made within the next three years.