As one of the largest law firms in Asia Pacific, Allens requires the highest quality legal tools. With the discontinuation of its previous document comparison software, Allens sought a reliable and user-friendly solution with comprehensive integrations with iManage and Outlook.
After discovering Draftable, Allens became one of the early testers of Draftable Legal and its feedback helped to shape the product’s feature development. The Allens and Draftable teams formed a strong partnership throughout the testing and deployment phases. Allens now serves on Draftable’s advisory panel for Draftable Legal, continuing to help shape the future of legal document comparison.
Read the full case study to find out how Allens partnered with Draftable to build a next-generation legal comparison solution to enhance its document workflows.
“Tech advances so quickly, we're always keeping an eye on what's available in the market. Working with newer tech companies like Draftable is great for Allens. They're always looking to innovate and improve, and they're very responsive to our feedback. This proactive approach means we get more value, more quickly.”
- Bill Tanner, CIO at Allens
Allens: Top 200 global firm with over 200 years of history
Allens is a leading international law firm with 41 offices in 26 countries as part of its global alliance with UK-headquartered Linklaters. The firm was named a leader (band one) across 19 practice areas in Chambers Asia Pacific 2024 and ranked first for M&A deals by value in Asia Pacific in the Bloomberg league tables for 2023.
Founded in 1822 by George Allen, Allens is Australia’s oldest law firm, holding some of the world’s longest ongoing client relationships dating back more than 170 years. With over 1,600 personnel, Allens works with high-profile clients across multiple sectors including government, media, financial services, healthcare and infrastructure.
The need for a new document comparison solution
Allens previously used compareDocs, which was approaching end of support in 2023. The firm assigned an internal team to find a new document comparison solution that could integrate with iManage in a way that served its lawyers’ various workflow needs. The solution had to meet compareDocs' feature parity and be reliable and cost-effective to be accepted by the team.
When seeking alternatives, the Allens team conducted independent research to identify potential document comparison vendors which led the team to Draftable. At the time Draftable had an early access version of Draftable Legal and was seeking input from the industry (May 2023). The Allens team contacted Draftable, and after receiving a demo from the product team, started sharing feedback and specific requirements.
Allens’ early testing helped shape Draftable Legal
Becoming early testers, Allens provided crucial feedback over nine months, significantly contributing to the development of Draftable Legal throughout 2023.
After initial testing, Allens requested specific features and improvements:
- Most importantly, a comprehensive iManage integration (including comparisons within iManage, easy version selection, and displaying iManage document metadata after file loading)
- Integration with MS Outlook
- The ability to compare comments
- The option to select from recent files
- Improved comparison speeds for longer documents
- A comparison progress bar
- Enhanced reliability, such as the ability to switch to the Draftable conversion engine to reduce compare errors.
The Allens team was delighted to see Draftable engage meaningfully with the feedback, and quickly implement changes into the product. This process fostered trust through ongoing communication around roadmap priorities and delivery to agreed timelines.
“We love working with the Draftable team because we know they will listen to us and deliver. It’s such a joy to be working together and we hope to continue our partnership for years to come.”
- Christine Pellizzari, Lead QA & Desktop Applications Engineer at Allens
A strong partnership leads to a smooth deployment process
The Allens team was thrilled with the collaborative relationship and the Draftable team’s responsiveness to feedback, rapid release cycles, and excellent support. Deployment of Draftable Legal began during pilot testing in late 2023, with formal feedback from end users contributing to high quality product improvements.
“Draftable Legal really stands out because it fits into our existing systems. It's compatible with our document management system and Microsoft Office, which means we spend less time on manual tasks and more time on important stuff.”
- Bill Tanner, CIO at Allens
The firm also had great feedback from its lawyers and other end users, as the software was easy to start using without formal training, and its speed and reliability enhanced workflows. To avoid disruption to those who were enjoying the solution, Draftable made pilot licenses available to Allens on an ongoing basis. After signing on with Draftable, testing and updates continued to ensure the product was ready for firm-wide deployment, and the solution was rolled out to additional teams in June 2024.
“It’s been great to see how the firm has embraced Draftable Legal. Users have provided us with lots of positive feedback and they’re loving it because it's so reliable and easy to use.”
- Alex De Audney, Technology Trainer at Allens
Allens joins Draftable’s advisory panel
Since rolling out Draftable Legal, Allens has had a fantastic outcome for multiple teams across the firm including the technical teams, lawyers and partners. CIO Bill Tanner highlighted Draftable Legal’s fair and transparent pricing, noting that the value received for the cost was exceptional.
Allens has formed a trusted partnership with the Draftable team and has already recommended Draftable Legal to several other firms, confident in the high quality of both the product and the team. Allens has also joined Draftable’s advisory panel for Draftable Legal and will continue to help shape the future of the product.
“Draftable Legal has exceeded our expectations in every way. The high-quality software and features have made it an indispensable tool for our team, and the firm was also impressed with the ease of deployment, exceptional support, and great pricing. ”
- Bill Tanner, CIO at Allens
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