Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP Becomes 150th Firm to Go Live on ADERANT Expert Release 7.5

Global News

30
Jun
2009

Leading national firm successfully upgrades in less than six months

ADERANT, a global provider of business and financial management software for law firms, today announced that the national law firm of Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP has become the 150th firm to go live on ADERANT Expert Release 7.5.  More than seven firms every month have successfully implemented or migrated to ADERANT Expert Release 7.5 since the enhanced version of the integrated practice management suite was introduced in October 2007.

An ADERANT client since 1999, Hinshaw decided to upgrade to ADERANT Expert Release 7.5 based on the application suite’s new functionality, including improved financial and statutory reporting capabilities and enhanced support for credit notes and ebilling.  Hinshaw completed the conversion in less than six months, making it the fourth time the firm had successfully migrated to a more advanced version of ADERANT Expert.

“We originally thought that the migration would be more involved than it actually was, especially given the significant new capabilities of ADERANT Expert Release 7.5,” said Edward O’Connell, Chief Financial Officer for Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP.  “In reality our upgrade went very smoothly.  We were able to easily switch over to the new version of ADERANT Expert with the help of ADERANT and Hinshaw financial and IT staff.  Our operations did not miss a beat.”

“We are exceptionally pleased that such a valued long-term client like Hinshaw & Culbertson has become the 150th firm to go live on ADERANT Expert Release 7.5,” said Michael Kohlsdorf, President and Chief Executive Officer for ADERANT.  “Hinshaw is a wonderful example of our ‘No Client Left Behind’ strategy, especially since this is the fourth time they have successfully migrated to a more current version of our practice management suite.  We continually introduce new functionality, new capabilities, and new technologies without forcing our clients to re-implement or, more importantly, re-purchase software.  This approach gives our clients the best long term value for their technology investment.”

Smooth, Methodical Migration
Hinshaw followed a methodical approach to its upgrade.  The firm did two test conversions to ensure a seamless transition to ADERANT Expert Release 7.5.  The first conversion focused on testing upgrades the firm had done to its hardware infrastructure, including switching over to a clustered environment to gain additional performance improvements.
 
Hinshaw then performed a second test conversion to ensure that the customizations it had done over the years to meet its unique business requirements worked with the new version of ADERANT Expert.  The firm also used actual production data from the prior month allowing them to fully test their month-end process, including reporting.  Using production data gave Hinshaw the ultimate confidence in moving to ADERANT Expert Release 7.5 as it was able to see that the results of its month-end close were exactly the same.

Hinshaw also conducted extensive internal training in preparation for the migration.  The firm tracked which employees had logged on to ADERANT Expert Release 7.5 to make sure everyone was exposed to the new system before it went live.

Continued Hinshaw’s O’Connell: “ADERANT’s support and consulting team played a key role in the success of our migration.  They gave us valuable help and advice on everything from setting up our new hardware infrastructure to preserving our customizations to training our end users.  The switchover to ADERANT Expert Release 7.5 has been seamless.”