Longstanding Aderant customer Holland & Knight is to move to Aderant’s fully managed cloud-hosted solution Expert Sierra in a major step for the Global Top 50 law firm, we can reveal. While cloud-based finance systems are the direction of travel, most large law firms in both the US and UK still have systems hosted on premises.
Holland & Knight, which has more than 2,200 attorneys and other professionals, was this year recognised by The American Lawyer as one of the fastest-rising global law firms. The Florida-headquartered firm has been live Aderant’s on-premise version of Expert for eight years but says it wanted an innovative cloud solution able to manage its time and billing processes, while also unlocking new AI-driven capabilities.
Aderant’s infrastructure as a service platform means that customers are always on the latest version and it has top-rated security because it is managed through Amazon Web Service (AWS).
Chief financial officer Mia Stutzman said that moving to Aderant Sierra would allow the firm to take advantage of Aderant-performed upgrades and business critical services oversight, commenting: “With Expert Sierra, we are embracing the latest technology while maintaining our customizations, integrations and progressive approach to leverage powerful time and billing solutions that will help us deliver the high standard of excellence our clients expect and deserve.”
Over the coming months, Aderant will work closely with Holland & Knight to ensure a smooth transition from Expert to Expert Sierra. This effort will include ensuring that more than 100 integrations between Expert and other software solutions are intact, some of which Holland & Knight developed in-house. The implementation is slated for completion in H1 2025.
“Holland & Knight is an outstanding law firm and a leader in client service,” said Chris Cartrett, CEO at Aderant. He added: “The move to Expert Sierra will continue to unlock even more opportunities and allow the firm to remain agile while serving its clients.” Aderant announced in March this year that it had 170 Expert Sierra clients.
Holland & Knight has 34 offices spanning across the world, and the firm was named 2024 Law Firm of the Year by American Lawyer’s Daily Business Review. Among other developments, its fast growth includes a combination in March 2023 with Waller Landsden Dortch & Davis and last year it acquired a full-service law firm in Latin America.