Dynamics 365 FO powering matter management for a top-50 law firm

Overview

Browne Jacobson is a major UK and Ireland law firm with over 1,300 people across offices in Nottingham, Birmingham, Cardiff, Dublin, Exeter, London, and Manchester. Founded in 1832, the firm serves clients across corporate, education, government, health, financial services, and insurance sectors.

Veriland Consulting implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations as the foundation of Browne Jacobson's Matter Management System — providing fee earners, partners, and finance teams with a unified platform to manage the full lifecycle of legal matters, from engagement and budgeting through to billing, revenue recognition, and profitability analysis.

The Challenge

As a growing full-service law firm, Browne Jacobson needed a robust technology platform to manage the financial and operational complexity of legal matter management at scale.

• Fragmented matter tracking: Legal matter data was spread across multiple systems, making it difficult for partners and fee earners to get a complete view of matter status, costs, and profitability in one place.
• Complex billing requirements: Legal billing involves time recording, disbursement tracking, multi-currency fee arrangements, fixed-fee matters, and client-specific billing rules — all of which required manual reconciliation across disparate systems.
• Limited financial visibility: Finance teams lacked real-time insight into work-in-progress (WIP), unbilled disbursements, and matter profitability — critical metrics for a professional services firm.
• Compliance and regulatory demands: SRA (Solicitors Regulation Authority) compliance, client money handling rules, and internal governance policies required precise financial controls that the existing systems could not enforce consistently.
• Multi-office coordination: With seven offices across the UK and Ireland, the firm needed a centralised platform that could support local operational needs while providing firm-wide reporting and governance.

Our Solution

Veriland delivered a comprehensive Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations implementation tailored to the specific requirements of legal matter management.

Matter Lifecycle Management

The core of the solution is a matter management framework built on D365 FO that tracks every legal matter from initial engagement through to closure. Each matter captures client details, fee arrangements, budgets, assigned fee earners, time entries, disbursements, and billing milestones — providing a single source of truth for everyone involved.

Time Recording & Billing

Integrated time recording allows fee earners to log time against matters directly within the platform. The billing engine supports the full range of legal billing models — hourly rates, fixed fees, capped fees, blended rates, and success fees — with automated bill generation and approval workflows.

Financial Controls & Compliance

The platform enforces SRA-compliant client money handling, with segregated client and office account management, automated trust accounting, and audit trails for every financial transaction. Revenue recognition follows the firm's accounting policies with full IFRS compliance.

Reporting & Analytics

Power BI dashboards integrated with D365 FO deliver real-time visibility into matter profitability, WIP, fee earner utilisation, billing realisation rates, and firm-wide financial performance — replacing manual spreadsheet-based reporting with live, drill-down analytics.

Multi-Office Deployment

The solution was rolled out across all Browne Jacobson offices with centralised data and reporting, while supporting local operational workflows and jurisdictional requirements for the Dublin office.

Key Results

The Dynamics 365 FO implementation transformed how Browne Jacobson manages legal matters and financial operations.

• Unified matter management: A single platform for the entire matter lifecycle — from engagement to billing — replaced fragmented systems and eliminated data silos.
• Real-time financial visibility: Partners and finance teams can now see matter profitability, WIP, and billing status in real time through integrated Power BI dashboards.
• Streamlined billing: Automated bill generation and approval workflows reduced billing cycle times and improved realisation rates.
• Regulatory compliance: SRA-compliant client money handling with full audit trails and automated trust accounting ensures consistent regulatory adherence.
• Multi-office consistency: A centralised platform serving all seven offices provides firm-wide reporting while supporting local operational requirements.
• Improved fee earner productivity: Integrated time recording and matter tracking within a single platform reduced administrative overhead for fee earners, allowing them to focus on billable work.

Technology Stack

Browne Jacobson's matter management platform is built on the Microsoft cloud stack, designed for security, scalability, and regulatory compliance.

Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations

Core platform for matter management, financial accounting, billing, time recording, and client money handling with SRA-compliant controls.

Power Platform

Power BI dashboards for real-time matter profitability, WIP analysis, fee earner utilisation, and firm-wide financial reporting.

Microsoft Azure

Cloud infrastructure providing enterprise-grade security, data residency compliance, and the scalable foundation for multi-office deployment.