top of page

Legal Tech Swing Dance

  • joseph2618
  • 3 days ago
  • 3 min read

Joseph Panetta

Fractional CMO | “makes the complex simple, the boring unforgettable and the risky wildly successful” | Experience Architect | Framework Maker | Reinvention Alchemist

September 4, 2025


After spending four years in #Legaltech bringing my consumer marketing ‘flair’ to the sleepy convergence of technology and the practice of law, Andrew Hutchinson referred me to a firm out of Australia with a novel legal platform.


A few things to note:


  • Andrew was a colleague at a couple of past legal tech brands, a champion sales guy and the only person who consistently referred me.

  • Coming out of COVID and the world had changed – ‘virtual’ had been proven for law firm employees, for corporations, and even for courts.

  • There was a lot of legal tech coming out of Australia, and this was not my first dance with Aussie products entering the US.


Immediation is an amalgam of “immediate” and “mediation.” The platform was a seamless interface for conducting mediation, arbitration, or litigation online.  Its “torture test” was handling the famed Vienna Moot (IYKYK – THE international forum for young mediators to train their skills).


I was the brand’s first Chief Marketing & Innovation Officer. It was my job to: 


  • Make sense of how we describe the tech and who it’s designed for

  • Find the audience for it (there were 3) and the various points of entry, so we could get in front of them

  • Hire outside support, like Stanton PRM, to spread the word.

  • Budget all of this and answer to the investors who comprised the board – a number of Perth-based multi-millionaires whose stated goal was to take the platform public and cash out.

To make their goal a reality, we needed wins – and fast.


We attended conferences, made news in the sector, created real industry impac,t and got noticed.


This was another instance where the product was good.  REALLY good.  Thanks to Sean Montgomery and team, the tech was superior, and the interface was a dream (according to #ICC in Paris).


The role had me on the road quite a bit over my three-year tenure.  Most of these were conferences or trade shows combined with prospect meetings or Thought Leadership events.  Much of this was accompanied by the founder and occasionally by our salespeople.



  • Cincinnati – on my birthday to set up for a court conference!

  • Chicago

  • New York

  • Australia

  • Dublin

  • London

  • Paris

  • Milwaukee

  • London (again)

  • Australia (again)

  • Scotland

  • Las Vegas 

  • New York (again)

  • DC

  • Atlanta

  • Orlando

  • Dallas

  • Albuquerque

  • DC (again)

  • Las Vegas (again)

  • New York (yet again)


We hit a groove.  We were making REAL headway – getting noticed by/projects from court systems, arbitration houses, mediation groups, developing partnerships, getting meaningful RFPs.  We signed a few important international clients. 


We were funded vs profitable, and our funders made their fortunes in mining (there isn’t much else in Perth!)  As a result, they grew impatient to see progress in the form of revenue, which was going to take time.


We were ALMOST there.  Then a series of mistakes accompanied by a touch of insanity at the very top of our company meant the whole thing came crashing down and, like Icarus, we went from high-flying to insolvency very fast.


Throughout much of my career, I’ve learned more about what NOT to do than the reverse.  This one was different in some ways.  I love a good quote, and this one hit home (oddly, it comes from a scene in Law & Order): “You know, it’s possible to make all the right choices and still have a bad outcome, right?”


Right choices


 Bad outcome


On the marketing, sales, and product side, we did everything right.  The bad outcome came from something we had no control over.


In many ways, I’m the most sad about this loss over any other because the promise was forming right in front of us. The marketing really worked.  The sales were picking up.  The product was nothing short of phenomenal.


Two things stand out to me most from this experience:


  1. The team was tight (still connected) and a greater group I’ve yet to find.

  2. Our breakthrough approach, coupled with our hunger to serve the client, developed true business-building relationships.  This is a transferable skill.


The rise and fall of Immediation was much more like a soap opera than a roller coaster.  And it is a real loss for the audience it was designed to serve.


Like Swing Dancing, what looked like a lot of frenetic energy and sweaty output was actually well-choreographed madness designed to make things better, smoother, and easier for all involved.

 
 
 
bottom of page