Baker Botts chooses Datolite to implement their DocuDraft system
Baker Botts leverages their long-term relationship with Datolite Solutions to help transition the firm from Elite Enterprise to Aderant Expert.
Baker Botts L.L.P., a leading global law firm, chose to partner with Datolite Solutions to build the firm’s comprehensive billing templates. The decision was primarily due to Datolite being one of the only vendors with expertise in both Design Gallery as well as DocuDraft. Having a business partner that thoroughly understood both systems was critical to Baker Botts’ implementation plan as the ultimate goal was to replicate and optimize their proforma, bill and ebilling templates for both their domestic and international offices. The teams worked closely together to ensure the transition was a smooth one.
“We decided to partner with Datolite because of their extensive expertise in both our legacy software (Elite Design Gallery), and the software we were converting to (Aderant’s DocuDraft). However, what we got was a lot more than that. Our assigned project team from Datolite was extremely knowledgeable, continuously dedicated, professional, innovative, responsive and not to mention a lot of fun! Partnering with Datolite on our highly complex DocuDraft project was critical to our project’s success,” said, Allie Tyler, Director of Financial Services, Baker Botts LLP.
Since the firm worked exclusively with the Datolite team for all their Design Gallery billing template needs, a full analysis was completed and a plan was developed to ensure the same functionality existed after the conversion to DocuDraft.
Challenges Along the Way
Challenges are to be expected in any implementation project, but the Datolite team creatively overcame these and provided Baker Botts with unique customizations to compliment and extend the DocuDraft solution to its fullest.
The first step was to implement Datolite’s Distribution Service to take the documents generated by DocuDraft and move them to designated folders based on the firm’s criteria. Prebills were sent to the firms designated folder structure while their final invoices awaited the firm’s sweep process to move them to iManage, at the same time renaming the files in this folder.
The second step was using the Custom Append Application to collate all files to one file folder. The firm chose the criteria for the append service to prepare the collated files and generated one email for each client for each attorney which allowed them to distribute via email as they chose. This “one email” solution cut down on email traffic and allowed the timekeepers to be more efficient with their prebill review
process.
“Through their DocuDraft add-ons, the Distribution Service and Custom Append Application, Datolite was able to enhance the functionality of our Aderant system and increase the value of our investment,” adds Tyler.
Next Steps
Baker Botts has been live on Aderant Expert for over a year now and are actively engaged in Phase two which includes designing templates to reduce remaining manual processes and updating templates to leverage additional Aderant features the firm plans to take advantage of after their recent system upgrade.
Baker Botts L.L.P. is a leading global law firm with a network of 12 offices in Austin, Brussels, Dallas, Dubai, Houston, London, Palo Alto, Riyadh, New York, San Francisco, Singapore and Washington, D.C. Baker Botts was founded in 1840, and in its last fiscal year had gross revenue of over $752 million. Based on the firm’s experience and knowledge of its clients’ industries, it is recognized as a leading firm in the energy, technology and life sciences sectors. Its multidisciplinary approach and its ability to utilize the talents of its attorneys and legal staff in a cost-effective manner has given Baker Botts a solid reputation as a provider of efficient legal services.
“It has been a pleasure helping the firm with this transition and we look forward to being their go-to partner for all their template needs,” said, Campbell Barrett, Managing Partner, Datolite Solutions.
Datolite Solutions, global Leader in billing and business intelligence solutions for legal and professional services firms, are experts in template development, document and proforma automation, and business intelligence solutions.
