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Whitepapers & research

Long-form, for the people who have to justify the decision.

Papers written for procurement, IT and the managing partner: principles, questions to ask, and what to put in writing. No product tour, no feature list, no invented statistics.

WHITEPAPER
01
2026
Published12 min readProcurement

Separated by design: what to ask before your client files share a database

Four separation models explained in plain language, what each one does and does not protect against, a ten-point test you can run in a week, and the contract terms that turn an assurance into something enforceable. Includes our own honest limits.

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RESEARCH
2026
EDITION
Published9 min readAnalysis

The State of Legal Practice Management 2026

Five findings from watching firms evaluate and adopt practice software — including the two systems of record most firms are quietly running, and the procurement questions nobody tests. Method and limitations stated up front.

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WHITEPAPER
02
2026
Published14 min readClient money

The trust ledger test: eight questions for any practice system

What a faithful client-money ledger must do, eight diagnostic questions with red flags, a half-day test you can run with your own bank statement, and the six contract terms that turn a ledger into evidence. Includes the limits of our own implementation.

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WHITEPAPER
03
2026
Published13 min readOperations

Managed or self-hosted? A decision framework for firms

Every operational obligation itemised with indicative hours, a cost model that includes the work nobody invoices, eight decision criteria, the four hybrid patterns in between, a five-question decision tree, and the mistakes firms make.

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IN
PREPARATION
04
In preparationTime & recovery

The recording problem: where billable time actually goes

Findings from the third of firms that measure recovery properly: the seven points at which recorded time diverges from worked time, how to instrument each one honestly, and why rounding policy is a distraction from the real cause.

Publishing next quarter — subscribe to be told

How we write these

Rules we hold ourselves to

  • Method stated, limitations stated. If we did not measure something, we say so rather than imply it.
  • Verifiable elsewhere. Our claims point at source code, a public runbook or a live instance you can open yourself.
  • No adjectives doing the work of facts. Practical specifics, or nothing.
  • Usable without us. A paper should still be useful to a firm that chooses somebody else — and several will.
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