Context
RCT is a top-tier Russian legal consulting practice specializing in insolvency. I had spent years as a practicing insolvency lawyer myself, so I knew exactly where the hours went - and how much of that work was structured and repeatable.
Problem
A 100-lawyer practice was producing routine documents by hand, pulling external analytics manually, and losing institutional knowledge in mailboxes. The firm needed internal tooling - and someone who could translate between lawyers and engineers to build it.
What I did
- Analysed how lawyers, assistants, and practice leads actually worked, and mapped the workflows worth automating.
- Designed and rolled out automation for routine document creation, with roles and permissions reflecting the real structure of legal teams (lawyers / assistants / practice heads).
- Integrated external analytics services into working processes via API, cutting manual research effort.
- Rolled out a corporate knowledge portal across 200+ employees - the adoption work in a complex, hierarchical organization was as much of the job as the build.
- Led a full website redesign, recognized as Best Law Firm Website in 2020.
Honest framing: this was internal tooling, not a commercial SaaS product. But the concepts are the same ones I've used ever since - workflow design, RBAC, module dependencies, and the unglamorous work of adoption.
Impact
- Manual effort cut across a 100-lawyer team through document automation and integrated analytics.
- A knowledge portal in daily use across the whole firm.
- An industry-recognized public web presence.
Takeaways
- Being a former user of the workflows you automate is an unfair advantage - discovery starts from lived experience, not assumptions.
- In expert organizations, adoption is won person by person; shipping the tool is the easy half.