This should put your last spending spree in perspective. Elevate recently announced that it had purchased Yerra Solutions, the legal company's fourth acquisition in four months.

Yerra, a legal managed services business with products that touch on everything from e-discovery to compliance and investigations, joins LexPredict, Halebury and Sumati Group as the latest additions to the Elevate fold.

Don't chalk it up to a problem with impulse purchases, though. Liam Brown, Elevate's founder and executive chairman, has been itching to acquire Yerra for years. After all, they have a lot in common.

“There aren't many law company providers—and that's the term that we use to describe our sector—that are both legal consulting, legal tech and legal services. I think they are the only other provider that I really think of as a law company that is in actually all those same three segments,” said Brown.

The differences between the two companies were also of critical interest. Elevate has built a strong presence in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, but the acquisition of Yerra now extends that reach into the continental Europe and Asia-Pacific markets.

Elevate is “looking to expand that presence and supplement their international expertise, something that we bring,” said Rajitha Boer, founder, president and CEO of Yerra Solutions.

Elevate's recent acquisition streak isn't strictly about covering the map. Brown pointed to a strategy that harkens back to the company's earliest days, where it considered the practice of law from the perspective of the different business disciplines that govern an attorney's day-to-day life.

For example, the problems faced by a lawyer working in the natural resources or tech industries will be different than those faced by an attorney in the employ of an investment bank. Maintaining a presence inside each of those market segments requires a broad portfolio of tools and solutions.

Brown was particularly attracted to the depth Yerra's “special sector focus” in the financial services industry could bring to Elevate's existing product lineup.

“We're really able to double down in financial services, understanding those kinds of problems, understanding the people and the business issues,” Brown said.

Boer thinks that Yerra will also bolster Elevate's document review process. “Our focus on the technical side of e-discovery, investigations, collections teams and international regulatory expertise complement that well,” Boer said

Meanwhile, Brown is already contemplating plans for Elevate's continued growth. He's mulling over the purchase of a UK law firm and also the possibility of taking the company public on the country's AIM stock exchange.

“We'd rather bring in public company capital so that the management team can continue to control the strategy and direction and growth of the business,” Brown said.