Case study
Twelve priorities in three weeks.
How a specialist litigation firm across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland used an Assessment to plan its route from a working practice to a scalable business.
- Client
- Specialist litigation firm
- Where
- Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland
- Engagement
- Technology and AI Assessment, fixed price and fixed scope
- Duration
- Three weeks, from kick-off to the leadership debrief
The challenge.
The firm was profitable and the team was capable, but the principal wanted to build something that could be valued as a tech-enabled business, instead of a traditional practice that depended on its partner, and to build a credible route to exit.
The day-to-day was familiar for a firm at this stage. The principal was the decision point for every new matter. Volumes lived in memory rather than in data. People had found their own workarounds: personal templates, personal reminders, personal ways of sharing documents. It worked. Just not consistently.
What we did.
The Assessment ran as four stages over three weeks, alongside the leadership team. There was no software to sell at the end. The proposal said the engagement had to stand on its own, and it did.
Map.
A structured questionnaire across six areas of the firm, from systems to client experience.
Listen.
Confidential, anonymised interviews with staff at every level, 45 to 60 minutes each, to surface what actually happens, not what's supposed to.
Benchmark.
Scoring against the market average and the best firms of a similar size and sector.
Roadmap.
Twelve priority opportunities, sequenced into a phased plan, with a leadership debrief and clear next steps.
Technology wasn't the problem.
Discipline, governance and structure around the existing tools were. So the roadmap gets more from the systems the firm already owns before recommending anything new.
Twelve opportunities, three phases, 18 months.
Phase 1, 0 to 3 months
Tighten the foundations.
- Switch on unused case management features
- Standardise templates and naming
- A simple AI use policy
- Close unsafe document sharing
Phase 2, 3 to 9 months
Build client-facing automation.
- A client portal that cuts routine update calls
- Website enquiries straight into the case management system
- Call recording and transcription
- Power BI reporting on caseload and cycle time
Phase 3, 9 to 18 months
Mature the operation.
- Marketing analytics linked to case data
- The portal extended to third parties
- AI search and summarisation
- An operating model ready for succession
Projected impact over 24 months.
- 20 to 30%
- more capacity, without new hires
- £150,000+
- a year of capacity freed up across the firm
- 50 to 80%
- fewer routine client update calls
- £0.5m to £1m
- projected valuation uplift at exit
Projections benchmarked against comparable change programmes.
Why it worked.
Most firms have no baseline. He left with one that was honest, specific and actionable.
Honest scoring.
Telling a successful firm it scored 2.8 out of 5 isn't comfortable. Flattery would have wasted everyone's time.
No vendor agenda.
The Assessment stands on its own. The roadmap gets more from existing systems before recommending anything new.
Sequenced wins.
The first phase delivers visible results in 90 days, which builds the credibility to take on the longer changes.
“What I got from Khiliad was clarity, a coherent picture of the firm and a clear sense of what to tackle first, which is genuinely hard to do from the inside.”
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