Holland & Hart adopts Intapp Time with Epiq Law Firm Advisory

Why did your firm decide to adopt a new time entry solution, and why Intapp Time?

About 10 years ago, we adopted the time entry tool provided by our practice management system. While the rollout went smoothly, over time we discovered that the functionality and stability of the software were lacking.

We submitted bug reports and feature requests to the vendor, but they were slow to address them, if they addressed them at all. Over several updates, the application actually became less dependable — timekeepers were losing time and having issues with timers.

We knew we had to make a change, so we evaluated a few options, including a new tool from our existing vendor, Intapp Time, and a few others.

We chose Intapp for a number of reasons. Many of our lawyers were familiar with their software already. We saw that the functionality and usability of the system would better meet our needs, and they have a track record that gave us greater comfort for our concerns about vendor stability and support.

Why did you select Epiq Law Firm Advisory as your consulting partner?

We told Intapp what we needed to help us implement and roll out the system. We went with Epiq based on their experience with Intapp Time — it was that simple.

How did the project kick off from your perspective?

It went extremely well. Epiq walked us through a really structured and efficient planning process and review.

They started by providing us with a requirements document to collect a variety of detailed information right up front. That included information about our existing tool, our financial system and data integration needs, and configuration details for the new time application.

We documented the specific fields we needed defined and included screenshots of our existing system. This helped them understand how we were using our time system, as well as the functional mappings and behaviors we expected in Intapp Time.

The Epiq team invested a lot of care and attention in understanding our needs. That greatly reduced the amount of time you typically have to spend on planning calls or going back and forth to scope and manage a project like this.

It’s rare to work with a service provider that’s so knowledgeable not only about the application they’re implementing, but also about how to best integrate it and configure it to meet the variety of scenarios we threw at them. They asked good questions and gave great advice.

You had some specific requirements tied to how lawyers can enter and update time. Can you explain?

Because it was part of our accounting system, our previous tool allowed lawyers to go back and edit entered and released time, as long as it hadn’t yet made its way onto a bill. This capability has proved helpful at times, and it was very important that we preserved it for our timekeepers.

When we implemented Intapp Time, we knew we would have to build a bi-directional data synchronization capability to carry this same experience over. Working with Epiq, we did just this — using scripting and system APIs to connect our existing finance and new time entry systems, so they’re regularly synchronizing time entry data back and forth.

For the users, the end result is that the new system works the same way as the old system, just as they expect it to.

You also had access control and compliance needs. Can you walk through those?

This was really led and driven by our risk team. They had very specific and granular requirements for how ethical walls and access controls were enforced in Intapp Time.

We needed the ability to restrict users from billing time to certain matters while still allowing visibility into those matters in the application. We wanted tight security rules applied at the user level — so a secretary couldn’t bill time to a matter on behalf of a walled timekeeper.

We also wanted the system to display pop-up context notifications to users when there were access control issues, instructing them on whom to contact for details.

Epiq’s Walls experts were able to address our security needs. They have a custom Walls-to-Time extension that they’ve built and customized to our specific requirements. We really benefited from the Epiq team’s cross-functional Intapp product expertise.

As the Intapp Time project advanced, how did you manage the rollout?

We invested heavily in testing. Time entry is so critical for any law firm that it’s important the tools used are rock solid, responsive, and broadly adopted.

After we put the initial system in place, we identified internal users we wanted to test the new software. It was a cross-section, including members of our technology committee, attorneys, and paralegals.

I worked very closely with that pilot group. We asked them to perform a number of typical time entry and data management tasks. We wanted to identify any important capabilities we missed, as well as anything we could improve or needed to change. We also tested and monitored the flow of data between the Intapp cloud system and our accounting application.

Throughout that process, we collaborated with Epiq using a Microsoft Teams channel they set up for the project. That proved helpful as it gave us a way to communicate, coordinate, and track activity in a centralized location.

With our initial testing complete, we moved on to the broader rollout. Building on recent success we had executing a phased software rollout under a “practice-group-by-practice-group” model, we followed the same approach for Intapp Time.

We created self-paced learning in the form of videos and user guides on key topics and supplemented that by hosting optional Q&A sessions. And because of the knowledge transfer and support we’ve had from Epiq, all of that went smoothly.

Can you share the feedback you’ve received from attorneys and staff?

Most definitely. I’m really pleased to share that we haven’t received a single negative note or comment. Everyone really likes the new Intapp Time system.

No one misses the old tool. The experience for our users has really been night and day — the new system is more user-friendly and intuitive, and we really haven’t had to provide much training to make people successful with it.

Most importantly, Intapp Time is just stable. There have been no glitches, no timer issues, no lost time or other data integrity issues.

Intapp Time really delivered on the critical technical requirements we had set out for this initiative.

What was your overall experience like working with Epiq Law Firm Advisory?

Our experience was wonderful. Epiq really sets themselves apart from most of the technology consultants we’ve worked with in the past.

It’s rare to work with a partner that brings this level of experience and expertise. They are just so incredibly knowledgeable about Intapp, Intapp Time, and time management in general — they truly know this stuff inside and out.

When we had questions, they were right there with answers, or paths to a solution — very different from other vendors that require a lot more back and forth and follow-up to stay on top of. Everyone on the Epiq Law Advisory team knew what to do and what our needs were, and they executed.

The bulk of our implementation was under a fixed fee model, so we had total comfort and visibility over budget and costs. We structured a smaller time-and-materials phase for rollout support so they’d be there to meet whatever demand we had for Q&A or training, and that’s actually come in way under our forecast budget as well, really due to the quality of the product and ease of adoption.