Look up any UTBMS legal billing code in our searchable UTBMS Code Database, with original guidance on when to use each code, what reviewers watch for, and what invoice review checks.
Client case study · American-Asian global technology company
For an American-Asian global technology company, Swiftwater connected Onit with finance, procurement, accounts payable, HR, and reporting systems across multiple entities and tax treatments, building proprietary middleware where standard integrations fell short. Vendor, employee, cost center, and invoice data moved between systems without manual workarounds.
Related case studies
The Challenge
The legal stack was bought one tool at a time. Now it has to work as one system.
An ELM chosen in one budget cycle, a CLM in another, documents on a shared drive, signatures in a standalone tool, and now AI arriving on top of all of it. Each purchase made sense on its own. Together they produce duplicate records, broken handoffs, and a legal team that spends its day moving information between systems that were never introduced to each other.
The fix is rarely another platform. It is an honest architecture: deciding which system owns each record, connecting the ones that stay, retiring the ones that should go, and implementing the gaps with adoption built in from the start.
Where legal technology programs break down
Tools selected in isolation, with no view of the overall stack
System-of-record boundaries never decided, so data lives everywhere and nowhere
Integrations underestimated, then retrofitted after go-live
Adoption assumed instead of planned
No operating model for who runs the stack after the consultants leave
What We Cover
One practice, seven disciplines.
Each one stands on its own. Together they are the stack your department actually runs on.
01 Enterprise Legal Management
Matters, spend, and eBilling →
Matter management, eBilling, legal service requests, legal holds and Legal Tracker support, with delivery across Onit, Mitratech, Wolters Kluwer, Thomson Reuters and legacy systems.
02 Contract Lifecycle Management
Contracts, end to end →
CLM selection, implementation, contract migration, and the adoption program that makes it stick. Fortune 500 programs built from scratch.
03 Document Management
Work product, governed →
Legal DMS strategy and NetDocuments implementation for corporate legal: matter-centric workspaces, workflow and knowledge management, governed AI, and migration off shared drives and legacy systems.
04 eSignature & Agreement Management
Signatures, under control →
Docusign consulting across eSignature, CLM, and the IAM platform. Governance, integrations, and rollout done once, correctly.
05 Legal AI
AI on the stack you own →
AI use case selection, governance, and deployment across the systems you have already invested in.
06 PM as a Service
The people who deliver it →
PMaaS puts experienced project and program managers with legal subject matter expertise inside your department to run legal technology projects and the wider portfolio. Project ranking and intake, delivery standards, and weekly steering committee reporting, available on demand and scaled to the work.
07 Intellectual Property Technology
The IP stack, connected →
IPMS selection and implementation, docketing and renewals data, and the integrations that connect the IP portfolio to matter management, spend, and the document stack. The full practice covers portfolio strategy and managed IP operations as well.
Our Approach
Strategy first. Then the stack.
Six steps, from a stack-level view through the team that runs it after go-live.
01
Technology Strategy & Roadmap
Where you are, what you actually need, and in what order. A stack-level view before any single-tool decision.
02
System-of-Record Architecture
Which platform owns matters, contracts, documents, and signatures. Settling this first prevents the most expensive category of rework.
03
Selection & RFP
Vendor-agnostic evaluation, honest shortlists, and negotiation support.
04
Implementation & Integration
Delivery by certified forward deployed engineers who sit with your team through go-live and adoption, with integrations built at the start rather than retrofitted after go-live.
05
Adoption & Change Management
A program, never a training day. Designed in from the start and measured after.
06
Managed Services
We can run the stack after go-live: admin, enhancements, reporting, and user support. See Legal Operations Managed Services.
Data Migration
Legal data migration from legacy and homegrown systems
Moving matters, invoices, contracts and documents off a legacy or homegrown system is where many legal technology programs slip. Every migration we run starts with a data quality assessment of the source system, then normalization, then staged validation against the source before cutover.
Our practitioners have run large single-wave migrations, including one of the largest eBilling data migrations in the industry, and have moved legal departments off shared drives and legacy systems into a governed document management system. The same method applies whether the destination is an ELM, a CLM or a DMS, and whether you are moving onto a platform or off one.
The Practice
Senior professionals, named on every engagement.
You work with the people who have run these programs, not a rotating bench. Full profiles sit on the practice pages each one leads.
Sam Lu
Senior Advisor, Legal Technology
Onit Level 4 certified. ELM selection and enterprise delivery.
Jonathan Gilman
Senior ELM / CLM / LSR Expert
Data migration and systems integration across complex enterprises.
Roger Jarman
EMEA Leader
Onit Level 4 certified. Multi-jurisdiction ELM programs across EMEA.
Gary Wheeler
CLM & AI Lead
Fortune 500 CLM programs and contract program design.
Bob Frostad
PMO Director & DMS Lead
A leader in our document management practice. 30+ years, 15+ at Microsoft.
Danish Butt
Managing Director
20+ years in legal technology and contracting programs, earlier at Huron Consulting and Morae Global.
Imran Jaswal
President & Co-Founder · Executive Director, Swiftwater AI Lab
Lawyer turned transformation leader. Legal AI strategy, governance, and deployment.
Jeannine Puello
Managed Services and Legal Ops Leader
Legal operations from Verizon and AT&T. Project management, vendor relations, matter management.
Ed Craft
Chief Information Officer
23 years at Microsoft. Azure, data pipelines, security and the integration layers legal systems connect through.
Frequently asked questions
What does a legal technology consultant do that the vendor's implementation team does not?
A vendor’s implementation team configures its own product. A legal technology consultant starts earlier and stays longer: deciding which system should own each record, choosing the platform, overseeing or delivering the implementation, and planning adoption and support after go-live. Our practitioners have delivered more than one platform, so the advice covers the whole stack.
How do you select legal technology without vendor bias?
We hold formal partnerships with Onit, NetDocuments and Docusign, which give clients certified implementation depth and direct escalation paths. Selection is a separate step: we score platforms against your requirements and processes, shortlist across vendors we partner with and vendors we do not, and we have told clients not to buy software our partners sell.
How do you migrate legal data from a legacy system?
We start with a data quality assessment of the source system, then normalize the data, then run staged validation against the source before cutover. Our practitioners have run large single-wave migrations from legacy and homegrown systems, and have moved departments off shared drives into a document management system.
Which platforms do you implement?
Our practitioners have delivered Onit, Mitratech, Wolters Kluwer, LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters, Dilitrust, NetDocuments, Docusign, Agiloft and Conga, as well as homegrown and legacy systems.
How long does a legal technology roadmap engagement take?
Typically 4 to 12 weeks, depending on the department’s size and how many systems are in scope.
Do you implement, or only advise?
Both. We can set the roadmap and oversee your vendor’s implementation, or deliver it ourselves through our ELM, CLM and document management practices, with forward deployed engineers who work alongside your team through go-live and adoption. After go-live, our managed services practice can run the stack: administration, enhancements, reporting and user support.
Should we fix our current systems or replace them?
Usually fix, sometimes replace, and the answer comes from the architecture review rather than the vendor. A surprising share of failed systems are correctly chosen platforms that were implemented without process design or adoption work. We assess that honestly before recommending a replacement cycle.
Plan the stack with a practitioner who has delivered it.
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