Proven Impact of3RIVE TECHNOLOGIES

The Challenge

The technology estate at a mid-sized firm is every bit as complex as a global firm's, on a fraction of the headcount. This firm's IT leadership had a full portfolio: a data centre exit, an iManage programme, service delivery improvements and, increasingly, a board-level expectation that the firm would have a credible answer on AI.

Each initiative needed a project manager. The AI agenda needed people who had already built and deployed AI inside law firms. None of it justified permanent hires: a PMO, a development team and an AI capability are fixed costs that a firm of this size cannot carry through the quiet periods, and the market for that talent is the same market the global firms are hiring in.

The familiar options all had a cost. Recruit, and carry the overhead. Engage a consultancy, and pay for a team when one experienced person was needed. Absorb it into a stretched IT function, and accept slower delivery and an AI agenda that stays on paper.

What the firm wanted was a partner that could operate as its PMO, its delivery team and its AI capability, flexing up and down with the portfolio, working inside its governance, and leaving structure behind rather than dependency.

The Solution: An Extended Team, Not a Vendor

3Rive became the firm's extended technology and innovation function. The model has three layers, each switched on as the firm's portfolio required.

1. 1

   Fractional Project Management, Inside the IT Team

   3Rive embedded an experienced legal-technology project manager into the firm's IT function on a fractional basis: half a day, five days a week. The project manager reports to the firm's IT Director, works in the firm's tools and attends the firm's own stand-ups and steering meetings. To stakeholders across the business there is no visible line between in-house and 3Rive.

   The first four months put structure across the portfolio: consistent tracking, clear ownership, regular reporting to IT leadership, coordination across every business stakeholder each project touched. Leadership could see where every initiative stood and where it was stuck.

2. 2

   Critical-Path Programmes, Run End to End

   When the firm's data centre migration was approved in January 2026, the firm asked the same project manager to lead it. 3Rive reshaped the allocation within the week. The first migration, the exit from the firm's primary data centre, was delivered on schedule with a weekend cutover to the new environment supported in person. In parallel the project manager shaped scope and approach for the firm's next phase of iManage work, so the document-management programme started with a plan rather than a blank page.

   The engagement has flexed throughout. When priorities moved, 3Rive held continuity through a shadow model: a second project manager sitting alongside the primary, already briefed on the portfolio, so the engagement could scale from 2 to 5 days or pause and restart without a ramp.

3. 3

   The AI Transformation Agenda

   With the portfolio under control and the infrastructure programme delivered, the conversation moved to AI. The firm's IT leadership had a methodical, targeted view of where AI should land first: not a firm-wide platform, but specific points of friction where a tool would pay for itself. What it lacked was a team that had already built that kind of tool inside a law firm.

   3Rive brings exactly six years of building and running AI inside law firms, delivered under ISO 27001 and as a member of the Anthropic Claude Partner Network. Working with the firm's IT Director, 3Rive has shaped and delivered the AI programme as an extension of the same engagement, across both fee-earning and back-office work.

   Each tool is scoped, built and put into production by the same embedded team that runs the firm's projects. There is no separate AI vendor, no second security review, and no handover between the people who know the firm and the people building it.

   Practice-facing tools

   • Fraud detection for family law. AI-assisted analysis of financial disclosure in divorce matters, surfacing inconsistencies and concealed assets that would otherwise depend on a fee-earner's reading of hundreds of pages. Review time on disclosure bundles down by around 60%.
   • Conflict searching at intake. Faster, more consistent conflict searching at intake, reducing the manual effort and the risk of a missed connection. Average conflict turnaround cut from a working day to under an hour.
   • Matter hygiene agents. Agents that monitor matter records for missing data, stale status and compliance gaps, and prompt the right person to fix them.

   Back-office automation

   • Finance reconciliations. Automated matching and exception reporting that replaced manual reconciliation cycles, returning roughly 3 days of finance-team effort per month.
   • Invoice processing and accounts receivable. Automated capture, coding and chasing, cutting invoice-handling effort by around half and shortening the chase cycle on overdue bills.
   • Marketing data cleanse. A clean, deduplicated CRM and marketing dataset, so campaigns and client reporting run on reliable data.

The Approach

• Start with the PMO gap. Fractional, consistent presence rather than occasional full days. Half a day every day keeps a project manager inside the rhythm of the team.
• Inside the firm's governance. Report to the firm's IT leadership, use the firm's tools, attend the firm's meetings. No parallel reporting line, no second governance regime.
• Earn the critical path. Establish visibility across everything in flight, then take on the programme that matters most.
• Reshape in days. When priorities change, the allocation changes within the week.
• Shadow for continuity. A second, briefed project manager behind the primary, so pauses and restarts cost nothing.
• Grow from delivery into innovation. Once trust is established on projects, extend the same team into the AI agenda rather than procuring a new vendor for it.

Systems

Systems integrated or migrated

Credentials

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