Dentons Cuts Entity Creation Time by 87% with Athennian

‍An Outdated Entity Management Software Platform Creates Revenue Loss and Inefficiencies

After their merger into Dentons, Bingham Greenebaum LLP (DBG) learned that their legacy corporate subsidiary management software was phasing out of business. A transition to modern business entity management software was both critical and time-sensitive. 

DBG's previous software also had many flaws that increased the DBG team's workload and caused issues with client services. 

Complicated filings were time-consuming, as they couldn't track the firm's total number of active entities with the legacy platform. DBG was also missing billing opportunities in cases where the firm was the registered agent or attorney of service for clients. 

The team also occasionally needed to write off billable hours because of missed deadlines due to the poor tracking options in their previous platform. "Sometimes we really took a revenue hit," said Rhonda Everhart, a DBG corporate paralegal.

Their previous business entity management software also lacked templates and workflow automation for standard tasks. "Every time we had to enter a new entity into the system, we had to do it manually from start to finish," said DBG administrative clerk Jeannie Huffer. There also was no option for DBG's clients to view their documents, which some clients required. 

The DBG team needed a business entity management software solution that catered to the needs of a corporate law practice. 

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A Business Entity Management Solution Tailored for Corporate Law Firms

The DBG group decided to switch to Athennian, largely due to a range of features that were tailored to corporate law. "We loved the corporate focus and what we could do with Athennian," said Huffer. 

DBG is rolling out Athennian across all the group's offices, and scanning and transitioning all critical documents, such as minute books, into Athennian. Two DBG offices have fully implemented the platform, and four others are in process. 

Easy Onboarding and Strong Customer Support for a Seamless Transition

The transition to Athennian was quick and painless. "The training is phenomenal," said Everhart, who handles Athennian system training for new users on the DBG team.  

Athennian's service has also saved substantial time for the DBG team during the implementation process.

"The customer service is off the charts. When I have a question or an issue and ask for help, Athennian gets back to me within 10 to 15 minutes. It's made the rollout and data clean-up easier for me," says Everhart.

And Athennian also guards against occasional human error. "I inadvertently deleted something the other day, so I reached out to Athennian," said Huffer. "I didn't really expect to recover the documents, but they found them all. The way their customer support responds is just phenomenal." 

The DBG team is now using Athennian as a central source for all their minute books and leveraging Athennian's custom coding and report options. The team now uses the task feature for critical deadlines. The Athennian customer support team also created new tools at the DBG team's request, such as consent form templates and custom stock searches. 

Athennian Maximizes Efficiency, Revenue, and Cost-Savings for DBG

Even at this early stage, the team has already seen strong results. For example, Athennian has maximized the team's efficiency in corporate entity creation, reducing the time from four hours to 30 minutes. "It's really streamlined the workflow," says Everhart. "Now, when a client wants us to create an entity, it's just half an hour, and we have it set up in the system. We can even file their articles with the secretary of state." 

The DBG team also appreciates the virtual minute book integration and the ease of edits and changes. "It really has streamlined the work," said Everhart.

"With our old minute books, there was so much process and paper. With Athennian, it's all electronic, and we can drag and drop everything." 

The transition to Athennian's integrated document signing capability also eased their workload. "Years ago documents were required to be signed with a particular color of ink," said Huffer. "Now, we just email them, they're signed digitally and sent back to us. It's just wonderful." 

And Athennian has reduced the research needed to finalize client invoices, freeing up attorney time for billable work.

"Athennian saved our lawyers so much research time on their annual billing," said Everhart. 

DBG Anticipates Future Savings and Productivity Increases with Athennian

As their Athennian rollout continues, the DBG team will deepen their use of the platform. For example, they are piloting a custom-built integration with iManage, which some of DBG's attorneys continue to use for basic document management. The link designed by Athennian will allow the two platforms to operate smoothly in tandem.

DBG also plans to use Athennian to bring outsourced activities in-house, such as tracking entities with foreign registrations and out-of-state filings. The team anticipates substantial cost savings once they stop using outside contractors or counsel for these services. They also expect savings on document archiving costs: the need for an outside vendor to scan and archive documents will become obsolete once DBG completes the implementation. 

The platform will also result in future revenue increases for DBG. For example, before implementing Athennian, some DBG offices did not bill clients for acting as their registered agents since they could not quickly view which ones used the service. With Athennian, DBG can begin generating income for the service.  

The biggest win has been the productivity and time savings Athennian created for the DBG team. Said Everhart, "I would definitely pitch the efficiency and convenience of Athennian. It's cut so much of the time we spent tracking down information. Now, we can see it all within Athennian."