Gridiron Capital has acquired ABC Legal Services, a national provider of outsourced legal services, from Aquiline Capital Partners.
ABC Legal’s support services include physical and electronic service of process (SOP) delivery, used by law firms and agencies to formally notify parties in legal actions; nationwide and international court document eFiling services that integrate directly with state and local court systems; and Docketly, a proprietary platform providing appearance attorneys for routine court hearings on behalf of clients. The company’s services are accessed through ABC Legal’s proprietary tech-enabled platform, which routes legal tasks to a network of over 8,000 certified process servers.
ABC Legal’s customer base includes over 29,000 law firms, corporations, and government agencies across the United States and in 88 countries. The company, led by CEO Tim Dinehart, was founded in 1974 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with additional regional offices across the U.S.
“This partnership with Gridiron is an exciting moment for our company and a win for our customers, partners, process servers, and employees,” said Mr. Dinehart. “We’re excited to leverage Gridiron’s knowledge and resources to continue to invest in our best-in-class technology and solutions, upholding our mission to simplify legal workflows for our customers. We are deeply grateful to Aquiline and our founders for their support and look forward to continued growth while striving to deliver exceptional service to our clients in this new chapter.”
Aquiline Capital acquired ABC Legal in 2019. During Aquiline’s ownership, ABC Legal expanded its services; designed, built, and launched new service technologies; and closed several add-on acquisitions that expanded its national network of offices and positioned it to expand across both private sector legal markets and public sector contract work. Recent add-on acquisitions include the June 2025 buys of Arizona-based On the Run Legal Solutions and California-based Specialized Attorney Services.
“Our journey with ABC Legal over the past six years has been incredibly rewarding,” said Matt Woeste, a partner at Aquiline. “It has been a privilege partnering with Tim and the ABC Legal team as they have successfully broadened the company’s service offering, enhanced its market-leading technology, and expanded its impressive client base both organically and through acquisitions. We believe ABC Legal is poised for continued growth and wish them success with Gridiron.”
ABC Legal operates in the legal process outsourcing (LPO) and legal tech industry, serving clients with document delivery, process serving, and court-related digital workflows. The legal tech sector continues to grow as law firms and government entities invest in automation and workflow digitization. According to Thomson Reuters’ 2024 Legal Tech Report, over 80% of legal departments plan to increase their use of legal technology in the next three years, citing cost reduction, compliance, and operational efficiency as key drivers.
The legal support services sector is well known to Gridiron Capital. In December 2022, the company acquired Esquire Deposition Solutions, an Atlanta-headquartered national provider of remote and in-person court reporting, video, and interpreting services. Esquire provides its services to law firms, insurance companies, and corporate legal departments and supports more than 150,000 remote or in-person depositions each year. The Atlanta-headquartered company was founded in 1978 and has 35 offices nationwide. In April 2014, Gridiron invested in Nashville-headquartered Legility, then known as Counsel on Call (the name was changed in 2018), a provider of outsourced legal services to in-house legal departments and law firms. Gridiron sold Legility to Consilio, a portfolio company of Stone Point Capital, in December 2021.
“We are excited to partner with the premier provider of SOP and broader legal document delivery services as they embark on their next chapter of growth,” said Scott Harrison, a senior managing director at Gridiron. “We look forward to further investing and extending the company’s current technology platform, building on their track record of innovation and leadership within their industry.”
Gridiron Capital invests in companies with enterprise values between $75 million and $600 million and EBITDA from $10 million to $60 million. The firm’s sectors of interest include business services, consumer products and services, and industrial growth.
Gridiron is currently investing from its fifth fund, which closed above target in October 2023 with $2.1 billion in capital. Fund V is Gridiron’s largest fund to date, significantly surpassing its fourth fund, which closed in December 2020 with $1.35 billion. Earlier this month, Gridiron acquired Greenix Pest Control, a provider of residential pest control services, from Riata Capital Group.
“Tim Dinehart and the entire ABC Legal organization should be immensely proud of their success to date, and of the business they have built,” said Andrew Kahn, a principal at Gridiron. “From our first meeting with the ABC team, it was evident that we share a strong cultural alignment and common vision for success. We’re thrilled to join forces with the ABC Legal team to drive forward that vision for the future.”
Aquiline invests in middle-market businesses across the financial services sector including financial technology, insurance, investment management, business services, credit and healthcare. Aquiline was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in New York City with an additional office in London.
Houlihan Lokey was the financial advisor to Gridiron on the buy of ABC Legal, while Harris Williams advised ABC Legal.
© 2025 Private Equity Professional | August 20, 2025
“Our journey with ABC Legal over the past six years has been incredibly rewarding,” said Matt Woeste, a partner at Aquiline. “It has been a privilege partnering with Tim and the ABC Legal team as they have successfully broadened the company’s service offering, enhanced its market-leading technology, and expanded its impressive client base both organically and through acquisitions. We believe ABC Legal is poised for continued growth and wish them success with Gridiron.”
“Tim Dinehart and the entire ABC Legal organization should be immensely proud of their success to date, and of the business they have built,” said Andrew Kahn, a principal at Gridiron. “From our first meeting with the ABC team, it was evident that we share a strong cultural alignment and common vision for success. We’re thrilled to join forces with the ABC Legal team to drive forward that vision for the future.”
