Elias Law Group did not exist as a law firm on September 1, 2021.
On September 2, 2021, 74 attorneys and 25 administrative staff members left an Am Law 100 firm to start the Elias Law Group, a litigation, political law, and campaign finance firm, bringing 600 clients and over 1,000 matters with them on day 1 of operations.
They were up and running on day 1 with seamless billing and timekeeping, all thanks to the relationship with Centerbase that was cultivated only six weeks prior.
Hannah Eaves, the Managing Partner at Elias, estimates that her first conversation with Centerbase was in mid-July 2021.
Due to limitations with legal practice, Eaves and her team were only able to discuss limited information with the Centerbase team, and what they were able to discuss was confidential and incomplete in nature.
“To go from that initial conversation to signing a contract to full implementation to launch in less than six weeks was heroic,” she says. “What the Centerbase sales and implementation teams did for us in August and September of 2021 was epic.”
Eaves called Centerbase coming through for Elias as the firm was launched, “the hallmark of our relationship.”
As Eaves and her team coordinated launch of firm activities like health care plans, 401Ks, and creating email addresses and phone numbers for all employees, the Centerbase implementation team worked in overdrive to ensure Elias would have seamless billing on the first day of the firm’s operations.
And, the team succeeded. Elias Law Group was able to get 99% of its bills out on time during the first billing cycle following the launch in the middle of October.
“To go from that initial conversation to signing a contract to full implementation to launch in less than six weeks was heroic. What the Centerbase sales and implementation teams did for us in August and September 2021 was epic.”
Billing and Timekeeping
“The strength of Centerbase’s software is the billing,” says Eaves.
Chanel Lawrence, Accounting Manager, agrees.
“I live in Centerbase’s billing and timekeeping features from the moment I sign on to work in the morning to the moment I sign off at night,” she says. “From editing time entries to revising bills to generating and approving pre-bills and generating invoices, Centerbase does it all.”
The feature Lawrence loves most, however, is the ability to email invoices to clients directly through Centerbase.
Previously, she had to manually email out 600-800 invoices a month. The ability to do this directly on the platform saves her hours a month.
This also aids in a faster turnaround for clients paying Elias, due in part to the option to pay by credit card.
Another feature Lawrence loves is the pre-bill approval process. The edits and changes made by the attorney responsible for the matters are easy to see and make for a seamless process.
For the features that Lawrence needs support with, she’s always been able to get the help she needs from Centerbase’s client service team.
“My experience with customer service has always been great,” she says. ‘I’ve never felt like my issues weren’t important.”
Both Eaves and Lawrence maintain that Centerbase is a very good software for timekeeping and billing, in addition to being very user-friendly with an easy-to-work-with support team.
When asked what she likes most, Eaves said, “It gets the bills out, so we get paid.”
So simple, but what’s better than that?
