Challenge
Partners were running conflict-of-interest checks by sending all-partners email at matter intake and waiting 48 hours for replies. Billable hours were captured in a separate timesheet tool that didn’t speak to billing, causing month-end reconciliation pain. Client documents lived across Outlook, desktops, and a shared drive. No single matter view. The firm had turned away three potential engagements in the prior quarter because the conflict check couldn’t be completed fast enough.
Solution
We configured Dynamics 365 around the firm’s matter lifecycle: automated conflict check workflow that searches existing and prior engagements plus related parties at intake (minutes, not days), billable time captured against matter records with rollups to partner-level utilisation reporting in Power BI, record-level security so only the matter team can see matter data, and integration with iManage Work so correspondence and deliverables stay linked to the matter. Change-management support across the 12-week rollout drove adoption above 95% in the first month.
Technologies
Results
“Conflicts now clear in under an hour instead of two days. We stopped losing engagements at the front door. The partners were sceptical about another system rollout; six weeks in, nobody wanted the old stack back.”