Major news today regarding the alternative legal services provider Axiom: the company has taken steps to prepare for an initial public offering and, separately, has spun off two companies as separate entities.

Axiom said today that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the proposed initial public offering of its common stock.

The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined, it said. The proposed offering is subject to, among other things, completion of the SEC review process and market conditions.

Meanwhile, Axiom has spun off two companies: Knowable, which will use machine-learning technology to help companies better understand their contracts, and Axiom Managed Services (AMS), which will offer people, processes and technology to provide outsourced legal help to companies.

The result of these spin-offs is three distinct companies: Axiom, which continues as a global marketplace for on-demand corporate legal talent; Knowable, focusing on enterprise contracts intelligence; and AMS, focusing on providing solutions for complex legal work at scale.

Knowable and AMS each have distinct leadership teams and will pursue their own separate investment strategies in order to accelerate innovation and optimize growth, the announcement says.

Ron Friedmann at Prism Legal recently reported that Axiom generates over $300 million a year in revenue.

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Bob is a lawyer, veteran legal journalist, and award-winning blogger and podcaster. In 2011, he was named to the inaugural Fastcase 50, honoring “the law’s smartest, most courageous innovators, techies, visionaries and leaders.” Earlier in his career, he was editor-in-chief of several legal publications, including The National Law Journal, and editorial director of ALM’s Litigation Services Division.