An Innovation-Led Law Firm Requires Cutting-Edge Technology

A deeply technology-savvy firm focused on corporate, technology, and securities law, Oziel Law's staff come from diverse backgrounds. The firm specializes in sectors of rapid innovation, such as software, robotics, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cryptocurrency, fashion, and food. Oziel Law assists clients through all growth stages: from formation and funding, to merger, acquisition, or public offering. 

Founder and managing partner Allan Oziel began building computers as a child and has since immersed himself in legal technology. He is now a recognized expert in the field, who regularly speaks on law-firm technology at conferences around the country. "When I started Oziel Law, I didn't want to simply accept the law firm status quo," he said. "After researching innovative legal technology solutions, we became one of the first fully cloud-based law firms." 

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Outdated Entity Management Software Misaligned With Oziel Law's Operations

Despite the team’s deep technological expertise and focus on innovation, Oziel Law struggled with its previous entity management platform. The software was not user-friendly and lacked a data backup mechanism. It was also difficult to scale and required the firm’s lawyers to take on manual data entry tasks. 

Because the previous software was not cloud-based, there was no safeguard to keep client data intact if a computer went down. "The software had to be installed on a single computer," said Oziel. "If that computer had an issue, all the data could have been lost." 

The firm created a workaround using a remote desktop and data backup plan. Unfortunately, the solution was inefficient and clunky, making it difficult for the firm's lawyers to use or train others on the software.

The previous platform also created additional work for the firm's lawyers. "We couldn't make changes without having to recreate documents," said associate lawyer Yonida Koukio, who led Oziel Law's Athennian implementation. "If the client updated something, the software record and the minute book were not consistent with each other, so we had to update manually. We also couldn't share documents with clients from the system. It really deterred the team from using it."

Oziel Law’s legacy system wasn’t a single source of truth, nor was it used consistently. It was clear that the company needed to implement cloud-based business entity management software. The highest priority was finding a deeply functional and user-friendly platform to safeguard client data and eliminate time-consuming manual tasks. 

A State-Of-The-Art Entity Management Platform Tailored to Oziel Law's Needs

After following Athennian's development over several years, Oziel asked Koukio to conduct a highly structured, head-to-head trial of Athennian against another major platform, comparing and scoring each aspect of their functionality.

Athennian soon became the obvious front-runner—it was the most advanced entity management system they tested, and the company boasted stellar customer support and responsiveness to feedback.

A core team of Oziel Law lawyers became Athennian's early adopters. Leveraging the flexible nature of the platform, the firm coded custom templates, first with the assistance of Athennian’s customer support team, and later with its own dedicated coder.  Athennian also created a custom coded plug-in to simplify the process for Oziel.

Once they had fully customized the system to meet Oziel Law’s needs, the company rolled out Athennian firm-wide and created internal training resources to accelerate adoption and new hire onboarding. "Our team was very excited to use the product, and it's now become a core part of our tool kit," said Oziel. 

Athennian Increases Oziel’s Profitability While Enhancing Efficiency 

After launch, Oziel Law rapidly expanded its use of Athennian to include corporate maintenance and document automation, compliance functions, and entity management. "Before Athennian, we used other software for the creation of corporate documents and corporate maintenance, which made it hard to make changes. Athennian has alleviated most of those pain points," said Oziel.

The firm now uses Athennian to set up and structure new corporations, including creating incorporation and minute book documents, and other corporate records. Annual corporate maintenance tasks are also now streamlined, as custom-coded processes make those tasks simple and repeatable.

Athennian has also reduced the time Oziel lawyers spend on data entry and other tedious tasks. "We're able to focus on client strategy since Athennian's document automation has improved our efficiency, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness," said Oziel. Athennian's document automation process has also virtually eliminated the spelling and other errors that often occur with manual data entry. 

The platform has also made Oziel Law's services more affordable to clients and increased firm profits. The firm has also leveraged Athennian to offer clients annual maintenance services on a fixed fee basis, creating a new revenue stream.

And Athennian has other positive impacts on the firm's revenues. For example, Athennian's document automation capabilities have allowed the firm to shift some tasks from lawyers to lower-cost clerks. "Athennian allows us to offer predictable and competitive fees to our clients," said Oziel. "That fee predictability also helps the firm increase profitability."

Oziel Plans to Expand Use of Athennian, Anticipates Further Revenue Impacts

Moving forward, Oziel Law will increase the number of entities they manage through Athennian. As a result, the firm anticipates being able to offer more streamlined and cost-effective services to its clients.

Oziel Law now retains an ongoing list of new document types and workflows for the coder to implement, which will increase efficiency over time. The entire firm is encouraged to add repeatable processes to the list. "Every corporate transaction can start with Athennian so long as we're managing that corporate entity on Athennian," said Oziel. He also anticipates using Athennian for simple transactions via custom fields and templates.

Although there are more benefits still to come, Athennian has already shown itself a strong asset for the firm and its clients. "Athennian provides our team with a cloud-based, modern, and usable tool to help create and manage entities,” said Oziel. “And it gives our clients and firm a single source of truth."

About Athennian 

Athennian is a modern business entity and subsidiary governance platform that powers teams to be transaction, audit, and compliance-ready. Legal, finance, and tax professionals use Athennian to automate workflows for ownership, governance, tax, and corporate compliance.

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