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Founded in Israel in 2014, the inspiration for Dropit Shopping was a business trip to New York undertaken by founder Karin Cabili.
Spotting the perfect pair of shoes in a nearby shoe shop while on her way to a meeting, she left without purchasing them, fearing that it would be inappropriate to attend the meeting carrying shopping bags. Her insight: why not create a service that collected shoppers’ purchases from subscribing shops—and which then delivered them to shoppers’ homes or hotel rooms?
Starting first in Israel, Dropit reached the UK in late 2016, rapidly expanding to over 150 stores in London’s West End. International growth with the world’s largest mall groups followed soon after, as Dropit further expanded its capabilities into creating true omnichannel shopping experiences.
Cost-effectively supporting such growth from a legal perspective proved challenging, relates chief business development officer Aaron Markowitz-Shulman, who joined Dropit in 2017, after initially helping the growing business in a consulting role. Responsible for legal affairs within Dropit’s management team, he recognised that the business needed legal capabilities stretching across commercial law, employment law, commercial property law, insurance—and of course, contractual law in the context of Dropit’s partnerships with large international retailers and mall owners.
Seeking such a mix, Markowitz-Shulman relates, he had informally spoken with several large law firms about the cost of engaging their services. But the conversations were not productive.
“The fee estimates were completely outside our range for the stage that the business was at,” he sums up. “While we wanted the calibre of skills that they could offer, we knew we needed to find a more efficient way of tactically structuring our global legal requirements.”
What to do? As a former employer in the shipping industry, Markowitz-Shulman recalled working with a very able commercial lawyer from The Legal Director. At a stroke, he realised, here was a potential solution: a de facto in-house general counsel, working part-time.
The lawyer in question, Charlotte McKnight, was, he knew, an all-round generalist—and someone who was very comfortable operating across a wide range of legal activity. And while the key requirement was competence on UK commercial law, the ability to support Dropit’s expansion by working with—and briefing— external law firms in Europe and North America would obviously be useful.
“In Charlotte, I knew that we’d got a ‘fit’: someone who could help us across a wide range of activities, acting as a member of the management team,” relates Markowitz-Shulman. “And in The Legal Director, we could see another good ‘fit’—an organisation that was flexible, responsive and highly professional.”
Appointed as Dropit Shopping’s part-time in-house de facto general counsel, on a baseline contract of four days a month, it’s fair to say that the range of work carried out by McKnight has been broader than either she or Markowitz-Shulman had originally envisaged.
Early priorities included setting up licensing agreements, and developing standard terms and conditions—an interesting but challenging task, given the innovative nature of the service that Dropit was offering, and paucity of existing templates on which to base such terms and conditions.
On the employment side, it was necessary to create a ‘new starter’ process and develop a staff handbook. Consultancy agreements required negotiating in some cases, and the onset of the GDPR and eventual CCPA data regimes called for further work.
Today the company is fortunate to have strong relationships with outstanding law firms across the US, Europe and Israel. Charlotte helps coordinate Dropit’s activity between these stakeholders and maintain consistency across jurisdictions, making these relationships even more valuable and effective.
“In Charlotte, we have a highly professional and valuable resource who is comfortable working at the highest level with major law firms and corporate counsels,” sums up Markowitz- Shulman. “We’re getting high-calibre legal advice in a manner that is cost-effective for a business of our size.”
More than that, he adds, it is advice delivered from the standpoint of the business: advice that is commercially- grounded, actionable and appropriate for the context of a business at Dropit’s stage of growth.
“I can ask very simple, focused questions, and get fast, accurate and precise responses—which, as we often need to take quick decisions, is exactly what we need. In many ways, Charlotte is simply perfect for us.”
The Legal Director is a fully regulated legal consultancy that provides businesses with high-calibre experienced lawyers on a part-time or flexible basis. By working smarter as part of the client’s business, and by delivering legal advice from a business perspective, we can demonstrably save our clientssignificant amounts of money and directors’ time. The Legal Director is the most transparent, cost-effective way of embedding a senior lawyer within your business — at a fraction of the cost of employing a full-time Legal Director or engaging with a traditional law firm on an ad hoc basis. We match one of our lawyers to your business needs and he/she then performs as a member of your senior management team, just like an in-house lawyer. Moreover, clients can use our unique 9-point legal framework for business-focused legal advice to systematically address key business areas that require legal expertise and appropriate action.
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