As he took the stage earlier than the almost 1,000 folks assembled within the ballroom of the Omni Lodge in Dallas to open his firm’s Momentum Global 2025 person convention Could 20, Aderant President and CEO Chris Cartrett mentioned he most popular to think about his discuss not as a keynote, however as a kick-off. However by the point I left the convention two days later, I couldn’t assist however assume that his kick-off – and far else on the convention – was additionally a little bit of a kick within the butt.
At the same time as Cartrett (pictured above) and different audio system heralded the advantages of the corporate’s new era of AI-enabled, cloud-based enterprise and monetary administration merchandise, they did so to an viewers that’s nonetheless betwixt and between – with many customers nonetheless loyally rooted within the terra firma of the on-premises merchandise upon which Aderant initially constructed its fame.
Ever since 2017, when Aderant first launched Knowledgeable Sierra, the cloud model of Aderant’s Knowledgeable monetary administration software program, the corporate’s sights have been set squarely on the cloud. When Cartrett – with Aderant since 2014, after transferring there from Thomson Reuters – was named CEO in 2022, his specific mission was to aggressively advance a cloud-first strategy all through Aderant’s suite of options.
The corporate considerably superior that technique ultimately yr’s Momentum convention with its release of Stridyn, an AI-driven cloud platform designed to unify all of Aderant’s cloud merchandise inside a cohesive interface.
And it additional superior that technique on the convention with the launch of one other four cloud-based applications – Cloud Accounts Receivable (AR), Cloud Common Ledger (GL), Stridyn Analytics, and askMADDI – and enhancements to different cloud purposes, equivalent to AI-powered era of billing narratives in iTimekeep.
The momentum on show at Momentum has confirmed profitable for the corporate. In his kick-off, Cartrett highlighted 2024 as a record-breaking yr for the corporate’s development and mentioned 2025 was on monitor to be even stronger.
Driving a lot of that development was Sierra, the cloud model of Knowledgeable, which grew by 234% during the last two years, Cartrett mentioned. In simply the primary quarter of this yr, 11 new corporations have gone reside on Sierra, and final yr, 47 corporations went reside. To assist drive all this, the corporate employed 110 new workers in 2024.
However it can’t be ignored that Aderant, in spite of everything, is an organization whose roots return almost 50 years to its founding in 1978. For a lot of of these earlier years, it was on the energy of its on-premises merchandise that it was in a position to set up and construct a major buyer base amongst massive and mid-sized legislation corporations.
Even within the face of all this momentum in direction of the cloud and AI on show on the convention, I spoke to a number of prospects – primarily at bigger legislation corporations – who informed me they’re fairly pleased with their on-premises variations of Aderant’s software program. They mentioned they’ve no real interest in transferring to the cloud – a minimum of not for now.
Some informed me that they spent years customizing and tailoring the software program to make it an ideal match for his or her agency, and, having executed that, they’re in no hurry to stroll away.
So once I say that Cartrett’s kick-off may also have been a little bit of a kick within the butt, I don’t imply to counsel that he’s pushing any of his prospects off on-premises variations of Aderant’s software program.
In actual fact, I immediately requested him whether or not Aderant had any plans to observe the instance of e-discovery firm Relativity – one other enterprise that constructed its fame on its on-prem software program lengthy earlier than constructing its cloud platform, and which recently announced that it’s going to require all new instances to be within the cloud beginning in 2028.
Cartrett responded that he has no plans to do something related, and that if such a date have been ever to come back, it might be very far off into the longer term.
Nonetheless, to this observer, it did really feel that Aderant is performing a fragile balancing act between its legacy prospects and its cloud prospects. And, to the extent it’s a balancing act, then for any prospects nonetheless teetering, Aderant is explicitly, if gently, encouraging them to hitch the cloud aspect.
In actual fact, throughout the opening session, Andy Hoyt, Aderant’s chief expertise officer, and Josiah Chaves, an Aderant veteran who was lately named the corporate’s chief client officer, made this crystal clear via two slides they offered.
The primary, titled “The Path of Innovation Adoption,” outlined how transitioning to the cloud would “revolutionize your expertise and productiveness” and allow prospects to “totally leverage the cloud’s potential and our refined, feature-rich platform.”
Following that was a slide titled, “Come to Sierra” that outlined the important thing advantages for purchasers of transferring to Aderant’s cloud platform:
- Stridyn Analytics.
- Subsequent-gen monetary administration.
- Stridyn structure and platform companies.
- Highly effective integrations.
- MADDI automation and insights.
- Strong cloud infrastructure.
- Enhanced UI.
Clearly, Aderant’s management sees the longer term within the cloud. And plenty of of its legacy prospects have already made that transfer and all its new prospects begin there.
However for these prospects nonetheless utilizing Aderant’s on-premises software program, possibly Momentum’s three days of product releases and in-depth demonstrations will encourage them, ultimately, to let go their earthly tethers.
New Cloud Monetary Apps
As Aderant’s executives took the stage final week to announce these new merchandise, the centerpiece was Aderant’s launch of 4 cloud monetary administration purposes. Collectively, the purposes signify a significant step ahead within the firm’s transition to the cloud, in addition to in its plans to combine AI throughout each product and each workflow.
At that product announcement session, Derek Schutz, director of product administration, platform and information, demonstrated how the brand new Cloud Accounts Receivable module can mechanically course of money receipts, match invoices, and deal with advanced allocation situations with minimal human intervention.
“Very straightforward, very multi functional place, quite simple to navigate round,” Schutz informed the viewers.
The Cloud Common Ledger software, in the meantime, is geared toward automating what has traditionally been one of the vital handbook features of legislation agency monetary administration. As Michael McKay, vp of engineering, defined throughout an illustration, the brand new system permits drill-down inquiries that permit customers to hint any journal entry all the way in which all the way down to its supply – whether or not it’s a time entry, AP bill, or invoice – with out having to contain IT employees or run customized SQL queries.
“It’s actually in a position to provide you with that 360-degree view of your information so you possibly can see the whole lot that’s occurring with out having to contain different folks in that course of,” McKay mentioned.
MADDI AI Integration
One other growth highlighted on the convention was Aderant’s extension of askMADDI, Aderant’s AI assistant, throughout all its cloud purposes. Aderant first launched MADDI two years in the past, and final yr made askMADDI out there on a restricted foundation inside particular merchandise. However now it’s built-in inside the Stridyn platform and in a position to ship context-aware solutions in any of Aderant’s cloud purposes.
CTO Hoyt described askMADDI as a “digital affiliate” that may subject pure language queries about agency information and operations. Throughout an illustration, he confirmed how a person can ask a query equivalent to, “Give me the highest consumer by AR stability,” and rapidly obtain a formatted response that might be exported or additional refined.
Hoyt emphasised that the AI isn’t nearly information queries but additionally about system steering. “AskMADDI will let you know precisely step-by-step how to try this,” he mentioned, referring to the system’s potential to offer procedural steering for advanced software program duties.
Chief Product Officer Doug Matthews and Chief Know-how Officer Andy Hoyt announce the discharge of Stridyn Analytics.
Hoyt and Chief Product Officer Doug Matthews outlined what they described as Aderant’s 4 strategic pillars for AI growth:
- Buyer centricity, which means the event begins with buyer want and worth.
- Accountable AI, which means it’s developed responsibly in a human-centric means.
- Area excellence, which means it’s developed with “unmatched” information of the authorized tech area.
- Technical excellence, which means it’s constructing merchandise utilizing state-of-the-art AI structure.
One-Contact Time Entry
Whereas the majority of Momentum’s attendees are legislation agency finance and billing professionals, it’s the authorized professionals who could also be significantly fascinated by one of many new makes use of of AI in a product unveiled final week.
That product is the brand new model of iTimekeep Premium, which extends the passive-timekeeping capabilities that have been already a part of the product to allow what Cartrett described as “one-touch time entry.”
Now, iTimekeep makes use of AI to mechanically plug-in motion codes and work descriptions based mostly on matter particulars and doc evaluation, considerably lowering the handbook work required for time entries.
Not like another passive-timekeeping merchandise in the marketplace, Cartrett mentioned, iTimekeep’s AI is educated on actual outcomes drawn from Aderant prospects, studying from the huge quantities of purchasers’ historic information drawn from Aderant’s BillBlast product to know when time entries are accepted or not.
“We all know details about our purchasers and what truly will get paid,” Cartrett informed me. “We all know what will get rejected, we all know what’s accepted.”
‘Borderless’ Service Technique
Past merchandise, a central theme all through the Momentum convention was delivering an “unmatched consumer expertise,” as Cartrett described it. It is a main strategic focus for the corporate, he mentioned, with a number of executives and initiatives aligned round remodeling how Aderant serves its legislation agency purchasers.
In his opening kick-off, he used an analogy to a restaurant he frequents as an example the transformation Aderant seeks to attain.
“The phrase we’d use, unmatched. It was an unmatched expertise inside that restaurant. In order that, to me is what I wish to speak about for all of you. I feel the place we must be as a enterprise and what my promise is to all of you is that Aderant goes to present you an unmatched consumer expertise.”
He described a three-pillar strategy to reaching that:
- Product Innovation: Encompassing enhanced software program capabilities and AI integration.
- Course of Enchancment: Together with streamlined inside operations and self-service capabilities.
- Folks and Construction: Organizational adjustments inside Aderant to eradicate silos.
Cartrett highlighted the latest appointment of Josiah Chaves as chief consumer officer, emphasizing a brand new “borderless” strategy to consumer service that’s meant to eradicate handoffs between departments.
Josiah Chaves, chief consumer officer, discusses the trail of innovation adoption.
Chaves, talking on the occasion, outlined his function as bringing collectively historically siloed features.
“It truly is about bringing this roadmap to life via our service supply,” Chaves mentioned. “And as we take into consideration tips on how to join with you higher and extra strategically, it’s about all of us throughout Aderant understanding the stuff you’re making an attempt to perform as a agency.”
On this new function, Chaves mentioned, a significant focus of this will likely be on enhancing prospects’ expertise in migrating to Sierra and lowering their effort in making that migration. Key features of this embody:
- Verification-ready onboarding, through which Aderant’s companies staff now handles some 650 crucial checks for Sierra migrations.
- A brand new “hypercare” program offering prolonged post-implementation assist at no extra price.
- Enterprise-critical account administration, offering a better stage of white-glove service for choose purchasers.
Even earlier than launching these packages, Chaves mentioned, Aderant’s service enhancements had resulted in 20% sooner time to resolve assist tickets and 25% discount in assist tickets.
“However we expect we will do higher,” he mentioned, “and so we’re persevering with to construct out new packages to hook up with you in a means that helps you accomplish that migration into Sierra.”
Associated to this can be a new initiative to offer prospects with an expanded array of self-service capabilities. These embody:
- Redesigned and expanded Aderant Academy, the corporate’s product-learning portal, with studying plans and snippet movies.
- An elevated buyer enhancement portal, the place prospects can submit product requests and different prospects can vote them up or down. Up to now, prospects have submitted 529 concepts, of which 9 have shipped and 59 are presently in growth.
- New information base articles, designed to deal with gaps in documentation.
- Self-serve dashboards for all Aderant apps, all of which will even embody cell entry.
In his opening remarks, Cartrett described this new strategy to customer support as “establishing a borderless expertise throughout our options and helping our purchasers in fixing their greatest enterprise challenges.”
Executives within the Sizzling Seat
One other core theme of the convention was transparency, and that was greatest demonstrated in 90-minute “Sizzling Seat” session throughout which a collection of executives took the recent seat to face pointed questions concerning the firm’s latest challenges.
Aisling Fenelon, Aderant’s vp of North America Gross sales (middle), takes the “sizzling seat” to reply pointed questions concerning the firm’s challenges. Her inquisitors are Jessica Kattman, vp, world advertising, and Andy Hoyt, chief expertise officer.
Aisling Fenelon, Aderant’s vp of North America gross sales, was candid when requested concerning the firm’s historic weaknesses in reporting.
“The place I really feel like we’ve fallen brief … is in that administration layer in between,” she mentioned. “How do you truly have a look at all of the ships within the sea and perceive the place they’re going and the place you may wish to flip in a special route?”
However pointing to the launch of Stridyn Analytics on the convention, she added, “However I do assume that we’re turning it round fairly rapidly.”
When he took the recent seat, CTO Hoyt supplied insights into Aderant’s technical evolution and high quality initiatives. He revealed important enhancements in system reliability, having decreased system regressions by 70%.
However he mentioned even that was not sufficient, and the Cartrett had given him and his staff their marching orders: “Inside the subsequent yr, no regressions in software program.”
For his half, Cartrett, requested about his greatest mistake as CEO, mentioned it was in not pushing himself and the corporate arduous sufficient in his early days of taking the helm.
“I have a look at once I first took over, I feel there for a short while we had settled on what we have been doing was successful, however we weren’t pushing ourselves to not simply lead, however dominate – dominate in a means that we don’t let the little startups be the inventive concept leaders.
“Why aren’t we doing the inventive concepts? I really feel like too typically we have been first to be second and I don’t essentially know that was the fitting technique as we transition extra into being the extra inventive chief.”
The Highway Forward
I had an opportunity to sit down down with Cartrett on the convention and document an interview for my LawNext podcast, which must be launched someday quickly. In that interview, he painted an image of an business – and an organization – in transition.
Whereas in Dallas, I sat down with Cartrett to document an episode of my LawNext podcast. Look ahead to that to drop quickly.
“Proper now, I’ve bought seven completely different product strains serving seven completely different teams o,” he mentioned. “You’ll be able to already see the handwriting on all of this – which is merge to the place it turns into one thing that’s extra of a monumental change,” suggesting a future the place particular person purposes give approach to built-in workflows.
An enormous piece of driving that integration will likely be AI, he mentioned. Too many legislation agency executives concern that AI will change jobs, he instructed, whereas the truth is that it’s going to assist them do their jobs higher.
Constructing A Group
For somebody like me who writes about authorized tech, attending a person convention might be enlightening. Too typically, a lot of what I hear about an organization is spoon fed to me by its executives and advertising groups. However at a person convention, I get unfettered entry to the precise customers, in addition to to a number of the extra rank-and-file individuals who work on the firm.
My takeaway was that there’s distinctive tradition inside Aderant’s person neighborhood. In his opening remarks, Cartrett asserted, “I might argue there’s about 600 folks on this room which have my cellphone quantity.” I’ve no means of verifying that declare, however I did hear from prospects that they respect the approachability and transparency of the corporate’s management.
This appeared evident all through the convention, from the Sizzling Seat session I described above the place executives fielded powerful inquiries to the pavilion space the place purchasers demonstrated their very own improvements utilizing Aderant expertise.
At one level throughout the Sizzling Seat session, in what seemed to be an unscripted trade, the moderators invited Frank Puleo, president of the impartial, nonprofit Aderant Expert Users Community, to face up within the viewers and provide his ideas on the convention and what might be executed to enhance it in future years.
Puleo, affiliate director of finance techniques at Proskauer Rose LLP, provided a number of options for bettering the convention, equivalent to extra numerous coaching content material – together with extra in-depth content material for purchasers who’re nonetheless on Knowledgeable – and higher categorization of periods by meant person.
From what I may inform, the convention drew attendees from legislation corporations globally, starting from main worldwide corporations to smaller regional corporations. Of the attendees I spoke to, some have been new to Aderant, some have been old-timers.
However the widespread thread all through was that they’re all grappling with related challenges round effectivity, compliance and consumer service in an more and more aggressive authorized market.
Within the face of these challenges, the convention made clear that Aderant is positioning itself as not only a software program vendor to legislation corporations, however as a strategic associate.
The success of that technique will probably be measured not simply in product adoption, however by whether or not Aderant can ship on Cartrett’s promise of an “unmatched consumer expertise.”
