A ProLaw implementation lives or dies on the quality of the partner running it. The software is largely the same across firms. The outcomes are wildly different. Here is how to tell the difference before you sign a statement of work — and before the project decisions become expensive to reverse.
Ask about last three, not best three
Any partner can produce three glowing references. Ask about the last three implementations they did, in order — including the messy ones. The story you hear is the truer signal, and a partner comfortable talking honestly about the difficult ones is usually the right partner.
Data migration is where projects die
Ask specifically how they handle historical time entries, trust accounting, matter hierarchies, document links and archived matters. If the answer is vague or heavily caveated, keep looking. The partners who have done this many times can describe the pattern in fifteen minutes.
Configuration vs customization vs code
Great partners bias hard toward configuration and away from custom code. Every line of custom code is a future upgrade tax that compounds for as long as the code is in place. The wrong partner will happily sell you a long-term maintenance obligation dressed up as a solution.
Change management is half the project
Attorney and staff behavior will change on go-live day whether you plan for it or not. A partner without a real training and adoption plan is selling you half a project, and the other half will show up in your ticket queue for eighteen months.
Post-go-live support
Ask what happens on day thirty, day sixty and day ninety. A partner that ends the engagement at cutover has not fully finished the project. The best partners commit to a post-go-live stabilization period with defined success criteria.
The financial model
Firms that pay for implementation on a milestone basis, tied to observable outcomes, get better projects than firms that pay on a pure time-and-materials basis. The partner's incentives should align with the firm's, not with the length of the engagement.
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