Research & Insights
Brad Smith
Imagine this: You’re running a law firm that is pursuing high growth. You don’t want to compromise on quality or quantity. You have a dynamic team of partners and associates, all eager to make their mark in a competitive legal landscape. But as you dive into daily operations, you quickly realise that the systems you rely on to manage your practice are outdated and clunky. The tools you hoped would support your growth are, in fact, slowing you down.
This is the scenario one of our clients found themselves in—a group of forward-thinking partners who had just branched out from a larger, traditional firm.
They knew that operational excellence was the key to success but were frustrated by the lack of effective solutions in the market. They’d started building a mixed practice firm with a core focus on Banking and Finance, General Corporate, Arbitration and Dispute Resolution. When they came to us, they had a clear expectation: to be tech-efficient from their early days, and to have a frictionless ‘Contract to Cash’ system.
But the challenge was far greater than we initially imagined.
Our journey with the firm began with a comprehensive Tech Audit, a deep-dive into their existing operations to understand the specific pain points. We uncovered a series of challenges:
Client relationship management in chaos
The firm was managing client relationships using basic Excel spreadsheets. While this was functional, it was far from ideal. There was no way to efficiently manage the complexities of client data, track interactions, or ensure that conflicts of interest were being appropriately flagged.
Timesheet and expense management woes
Tracking professional hours and managing expenses is critical for any law firm. This firm was saddled with a system that couldn’t adequately distinguish between billable and non-billable work. Expenses were being tracked haphazardly, leading to a lack of visibility and making
Matter management nightmares
The backbone of any law firm is its ability to manage matters effectively. However, the firm’s existing system lacked the ability to track matters and sub-matters in a way that linked them to specific client contacts. The absence of a customised billing type for each sub-matter added to the inefficiencies, causing frustration and inaccuracies.
Financial Operations in disarray
Perhaps most concerning was the state of the firm’s financial operations. Without an integrated financial module connected to their bank, they were left with a disjointed, error-prone process that required excessive manual intervention. It was all very cumbersome, involving numerous calls to the bank’s relationship manager and poring over bank statements to match transaction IDs.
Armed with these insights, we embarked on a mission to find a ready-made solution that could address the firm’s challenges. However, what we encountered was far from encouraging. The market was choc-a-bloc with off-the-shelf solutions that promised much but delivered little. In fact, many of the bottlenecks experienced by the client could be traced to an off-the-shelf practice management software they were using. The software was non-intuitive, lacked user-friendliness and just generally felt archaic.
Taken together, the client’s systems were not just lacking in features; they actually hindered productivity rather than enhancing it. In some cases, it felt as though the firm would be better off with no system at all rather than trying to work around the limitations of these sub-par tools. The software providers claimed to keep adding new features, including ones which were AI-powered, but the updates had little relevance to the tasks that the firm was trying to achieve.
The frustration was palpable. These solutions were clunky, difficult to navigate, and required so much manual work that they were, in essence, adding man hours rather than reducing them. The decision became clear—there was no choice but to go custom.
Realising that no off-the-shelf solution could meet their needs, we teamed up with one of our trusted Tech Partners to build a custom solution from the ground up using Microsoft’s powerful platform. Our Tech Partner has been in business for over two decades, and has thrived through several rounds of the technology hype cycle. They’re known for getting down to brass tacks, and delivering solutions that are suited to both the current state and future scaling ambitions of clients.
With the decision made, we set out to design a robust operational framework tailored to the firm’s specific needs:
Revolutionising client management
We transformed their client management approach by building a comprehensive Client Management System (CMS) with advanced features, including a Conflict Check Mechanism. This ensured that potential conflicts of interest were managed seamlessly.
Reimagining matter management
Our custom Matter Management System allowed the firm to track every matter and sub-matter in granular detail. By linking matters to specific client contacts and enabling customised billing types, we provided the flexibility needed to accommodate various client agreements and billing structures.
Streamlining timesheet and expense management
We implemented an advanced system that precisely tracked professional hours and expenses, and also distinguishing between billable and non-billable work. This gave the firm greater visibility into resource allocation and expense management, paving the way for more informed decision-making.
Integrating financial operations
By migrating the firm’s financial operations to a Microsoft-based platform and integrating it with their bank, we streamlined transaction processing, enabled real-time financial tracking, and improved financial reporting. This reduced manual errors and gave the partners greater control over financial operations.
The result of this collaboration was transformative. We delivered a feature-rich system that was simple to learn and easy to use. Despite the complexity of the challenges it addressed, the solution was designed with the end-user in mind, ensuring that it could be adopted quickly by everyone in the firm, from partners to associates. Its integrated nature meant that it was a one-stop-shop for many of the firm’s administrative functions, and it became the fulcrum of a process management system that began to run like a well-oiled machine.
The simplicity in design meant that the firm could hit the ground running, with minimal disruption to daily operations. They now operate with a level of efficiency that matches their ambitious goals. Our partnership didn’t just provide them with the tools they needed; it set the foundation for a future-proof operational strategy that will support their growth for years to come.
If your firm is facing similar hurdles, we’re here to help. Let’s work together to craft a solution that empowers your firm to achieve its full potential.