Changing a legal tech system often takes a long time — but not always. Slater and Gordon chief technology officer Simon Martin showcases how its strong partnership with ShareDo enabled the firm to deliver the first phase of its new CMS migration in the blink of an eye.
Over the past year and a half, Slater and Gordon has been working hard to take its digital transformation to the next level — with plans to move 95% of its business operations and systems to the cloud by 2026, confirms its chief technology officer Simon Martin.
“Our tech strategy is focused on multiple things, with the main priorities being the transition to a Saas-based architecture, having a data platform that enables us to see real-time analytics across our entire business, and laying the foundation that will support future technological advancements, including AI and genAI,” he says.
A Strategic Leap Towards Cloud-Based Architecture
One of the core pillars of this strategy is a revamp of its case management system (CMS). A history of law firm acquisitions and siloed tech purchases has resulted in the firm using multiple CMSs (including three on-premises systems) across different areas of the business. The result: inconsistent processes, difficult system maintenance and management, and overall reduced productivity — a trifecta acting as a major blocker for the firm’s innovation strategy.
Keen to move away from the legacy on-prem systems and to embrace the cloud, the firm scoured the market for the right tech partner and a CMS that would check most, if not all, items off its rigorous, 198-point evaluation matrix.
Why ShareDo Emerged as the Clear Winner
After a year-long RFP process, it was ShareDo’s CMS that emerged as the clear winner, meeting 95% of the firm’s thorough evaluation criteria. Of those, the system’s cloud-centric approach, easy integrations with other tech solutions (including Microsoft products) and low/no code capabilities were the key factors that attracted the firm.
“While lots of other tech providers we tested out were in the process of building the capabilities we were looking for, ShareDo was already 12 months ahead of the curve,” notes Martin.
“That was quite a big deciding factor for us, as we didn’t want to wait a long time to be able to use those capabilities — we wanted to hit the ground running, quickly.”
Acceleration and Migrating in the Blink of an Eye
Slater and Gordon began working with ShareDo at the end of 2024. The process was split into three phases — one for replacing each existing on-prem CMS — and was originally set to be completed within 18 months.
However, a last-minute issue with one of its existing providers accelerated the first phase of the plan: migrating the firm’s cost department, which runs a varied caseload of high-value professional indemnity and clinical negligence cost cases. As such, Slater and Gordon was forced to migrate 80 users, thousands of cases and a million documents to the new CMS within 12 weeks — about half the original allotted time, and during the festive season no less.
This is where ShareDo’s solution accelerator packs — pre-defined workflows that can be tweaked to fit a firm’s particular processes — proved particularly valuable, allowing the firm to significantly speed up the migration process.
Migrating the department’s documents and data was only half the battle, however. The transition also required an extensive training programme to teach the users how to work in the new platform. Martin recalls: “Our internal team and ShareDo had to be very responsive and adapt fast to deliver training both virtually and face-to-face, but also create the necessary knowledge base. We had many moments when the team had to deliver training less than 24 hours after a new capability was built, and even when we were two weeks away from the go-live date, we were still building features and processes. It was incredibly challenging.”
During this tough time, ShareDo provided constant and extensive support — both for completing the migration and for training — which impressed the firm and confirmed it was the right vendor with which to partner.
“ShareDo’s team was brilliant in terms of rapid development and support — very thorough, personable and authentic. We wouldn’t have been able to deliver this phase without it,” notes Martin.
Full Steam Ahead: The Value of a Strong Partnership
While the journey’s not yet complete, Slater and Gordon can already see the positives the new CMS brings to the table: higher system stability, better performance and, above all, the ability to make changes much faster and smoother.
“While lots of other tech providers we tested out were in the process of building the capabilities we were looking for, ShareDo was already 12 months ahead of the curve,” notes Martin. “That was quite a big deciding factor for us, as we didn’t want to wait a long time to be able to use those capabilities — we wanted to hit the ground running, quickly.”
With phase one complete in record time, the firm is now in the midst of delivering the second phase, which involves migrating its complex practice areas, integrating several existing tech solutions into the CMS, and implementing additional features that were not delivered in phase one. The last phase will see Slater and Gordon deliver the final CMS migration, and implement automation for certain processes, among other tasks.
“We can’t rest on our laurels. The second and third phases are more complex, so both we and ShareDo really need to step up our game,” says Martin.
Nevertheless, given the baptism of fire the firm has already been through, Martin is confident in this strong partnership’s ability to keep the momentum going until the end.
Ready to accelerate your own digital transformation? Book a demo with a ShareDo expert today to start building your future-proof practice.
This article was originally published in Briefing Magazine (Sept 2025) and is available here.
