Legal firms from all over the Asia Pacific region attended the annual two day ADERANT Conference on 10 and 11 September. Attendees were provided with a range of sessions covering strategic, financial and technical content. The Business Intelligence, Roundtable and Reporting sessions were particularly well attended, along with the Workflow presentations. These extensions to ADERANT’s product suite were received very favourably by firms in attendance, particularly as they are aligned with the Microsoft technology strategy.
ADERANT, a provider of business and financial management software for law firms, today announced that it had purchased a suite of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) applications developed by StarLaw. The acquisition adds integrated document management, records management, and email management solutions to ADERANT’s product portfolio.
Listen to Mike Kohlsdorf, CEO of Aderant, in this exclusive interview with Ari Kaplan, special to the Legal Technology blog.
Aderant Expert’s latest edition, dubbed Golden Gate, is built on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Workflow Foundation. The business and financial management software includes a new file creation program, Expert File Opening. The new software helps users streamline business processes, improve management oversight, and minimize risk, says CEO Michael Kohlsdorf, by standardizing the new client intake process.
US technology and life sciences firm Fenwick and West recently swapped its new practice management software from Elite Enterprise PMS to ADERANT Expert. The firm managed to convert its legacy data and roll it out to all four of its offices within just 12 months.
Although reports suggest Elite is still on track for the 3E implementation at Allen and Overy to go live by the end of May, the big buzz coming out of last week’s Momentum conference in Miami Beach is ADERANT has reached the tipping point and is set to become the vendor of choice for larger law firms. There are a raft of upgrades and new orders waiting to be announced, and there are also some interesting new product positioning initiatives waiting in the wings. But, what else was new?
ADERANT’s latest release Golden Gate is called the “next-generation version” of Expert and, true to its name, bridges the gap in today’s lawyers’ complex navigation and time-capture needs. The application includes a new navigation function called Expert Assistant – giving time-capture capabilities even when working remotely or offline – Spend Management and Cost Control system, as well as E-Billing and Analytical Reporting capabilities. This, combined with a ‘powerful’ enterprise-capable work-flow engine and new file-opening application called Expert File Opening, helps ‘drive’ automated results with better consistency and efficiency. “By embedding Microsoft’s powerful work-flow technology in the core of our application suite – a first for the legal industry – we are able help our clients streamline critical business processes, improve management oversight, and minimise their exposure to risk,” said ADERANT’s President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Kohlsdorf.
Orrick leveraged its business and financial management software, ADERANT Expert, to reduce lags in time capture and client billings, encourage faster collections, and as a result,increase cash flow and profitability. The report card system and grading practice has taken abstract data and transformed it into relevant and actionable information. We have consistently measured the firm’s tangible results achieved with our grading initiative, and these include the following: A 10 percent drop in days in inventory through 2007; Improved cash flow from faster billings and collections; Increased, and faster, partner draws; A 35 percent increase in Profits per Fully Variable Partner, from $1.09 million in 2004 to $1.66 million in 2007.
Taylor Wessing integrates accounting as leadership comes under review. Taylor Wessing is gearing up for a management election as UK managing partner Michael Frawley’s second term draws to a close. Frawley told Legal Week: “Our accounting system for France, the UK and Brussels was on life support and we therefore needed to find a practice management system (PMS) that would not only accommodate all of our offices including Germany, but would integrate and communicate with our document management, e-filing systems and client information data bases. The system is a major step for the firm.”
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