- Home/
- Legal Ops/
- Legal Operations Software/
- Ascent ELM
Enterprise Legal Management
Powerful Enterprise Legal Management software delivers insights to control matters and costs
Ascent ELM streamlines Legal Operations, manages outside legal vendors, and quickly analyzes all matters and business data to control your cases & costs with one solution. Ascent ELM software from Questel provides a single source to manage outside expenses while improving legal performance by up to 65%. Questel's comprehensive software and technology solutions offer a one-stop shop to manage all your legal tasks from the leader in legal technology
Legal Ops teams use Ascent ELM to boost team efficiency by 65%, repurpose attorneys onto higher-value tasks, and reduce legal spend by 20%.
- ELM increases process and team efficiency using automation
- One collaborative analytic dashboard provides daily tasks visibility
- Quickly find answers using Query Builder™ to search matter data
- Inclusive client support identifies savings & improvement opportunities
- Complete matter data visibility empowers searches, analysis, and reporting
- Vendor scorecards enable consolidation based on outside counsel performance
- Integrated eBilling, Matter Management, and Legal Holds offer a single solution
- ELM software allows attorneys to focus on practicing law, not managing tech
- Greater visibility directs actions that achieve more business goals
- Integrated systems remove info silos for holistic data transparency
- Real time analytic insights develop C-Level confidence in Legal's advice
- Timely answers shape strategic opportunities and future initiatives
Use a secure repository for legal documents, notes, and status updates related to your matters. Drag-and-drop capabilities simplify associating any information in your matter data library. Pre-built reports, custom queries, and full-text search tools make retrieving all information about any matter easy. Your teams exercise full control over matter spend by managing timekeepers, including outside legal vendors, through a single dashboard. Gain full matter visibility using an easy-to-use, comprehensive suite of management tools and searches.
Simplify the way you work with streamlined functionality that navigates directly to any specific matter data and its tasks. Questel provides a feature-rich, user-friendly interface with Ascent ELM's fully configurable system. All matter data is immediately available to search, review, and report in real time. Our ELM experts guide your team, including your outside counsel and other timekeepers, to ensure you work smarter, not harder.
Automate invoice processes, create and manage AFAs, and securely work with all vendors.
Manage the entire communication workflow between your team and all custodians involved in a legal hold. Easily direct your legal hold management using robust capabilities such as automated notification schedules, creating email notifications, and choosing which custodians to communicate with. Questel ELM support experts take the guesswork out of the workflow and ensure full compliance with every aspect of your legal hold process.
Communicate effectively between multiple groups of custodians as part of all litigation legal holds.
View your most critical information in one place, in a way that makes sense to you. SmartView™ analytic dashboards allow you to see all legal data at a glance. Rapidly visualize the critical data you need with graphical displays of Ascent ELM's advanced data analytics. You can compare matter, spend, and law firm data on the same view to make truly informed decisions.
Graphical representations simplify complex data to be easily understood at a glance.
Allow teams to easily leverage advanced performance data to create and manage value-based billing scenarios with Ascent ELM's AFA Wizard™. Advanced functionality quickly stores documents within the AFA record, securely collaborates with outside counsel and vendors, evaluates AFAs against "shadow bills," and manages outside legal spend relative to AFAs – all in one place.
Configure AFA's custom conditions for maximum flexibility.
ELM systems work best when they match how your business operates. No other solutions can offer the unique flexibility you get from Questel's Ascent ELM's Flex-System™. Personalize the system to your unique processes and workflows without the time & expense of software customization. You direct our experts on what's essential to your work and what Ascent ELM must deliver to advance your business value.
Ongoing support ensures your business evolves and ELM's configuration keeps pace.
What should I look for in an ELM solution?
The service components of an advanced ELM solution must include: matter management, eBilling invoice management, advanced legal spend reporting, Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs), Outlook integration, analytics, budgeting & forecasting, benchmarking, timekeeper tracking, user-friendly dashboards, and business system integrations. These are all included with our Ascent ELM software, but there is so much more. Questel includes a predictable cost of ownership, ongoing training, and solution support, at no extra charge.
We live in Outlook; does Enterprise Legal Management easily integrate with it?
Questel's Ascent ELM software integrates with Outlook and the complete MS Office suite of programs. We understand that attorneys live in outlook, so Ascent ELM allows for full functionality without leaving any Office tool to easily add matters, review invoices, and associate documents. Seamlessly streamline work directly from any inbox without sacrificing the feature-rich functionality and security of the full Ascent ELM system.
Ascent ELM software provides full drag-and-drop functionality from your inbox to the data repository in one step. Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint allow attorneys to approve, adjust, or reject invoices without accessing multiple programs to easily manage their matters.
Our IT team is concerned about increasing workloads. Does Questel help handle the software?
Most clients inform us their IT department is dealing with added concerns about cyber security, technology up-time, remote access, and user support - the last thing they want is another piece of software to manage. Questel's team supports clients and vendors. Our dedicated experts work as an extension of your own IT team to help you overcome infrastructure limitations, maintain data security, manage software implementations, support all users and vendors, and even install updates. This level of engagement allows your team to focus on supporting the business of practicing law and focusing on clients' needs first.
Out-of-the-box reports don't always give us the answers we need. Can I create a report or query without asking for help?
Ascent ELM comes with 100's reports that satisfy most legal operations' needs, but every company is unique which leads to unique reports. Waiting for answers can cause inaction and waiting for someone's help is time-consuming. Our Report Builder™ lets you easily create, export, and target all of your matter data and receive timely answers. If you do need more help, our experts are here to help you accomplish your goal.
Can Enterprise Legal Management software be configured to our work processes for legal operations, and can it evolve with us?
Questel offers a completely configurable ELM solution to meet your eBilling, Matter Management, and Legal Hold needs. Our software has a foundation layer and a configuration layer that can be adjusted to meet your unique business. Needs and requirements change over time, so our experts stay abreast of changes in billing requirements so the system changes along with you. Configurable solutions are less complex and time-consuming than customized solutions, so we lower your downtime and cost.
How can Ascent ELM help my team manage our legal holds?
Ascent ELM includes a powerful set of capabilities that include a Legal Hold Module to eliminate the stress and avoid the human error that can be associated with litigation. Ascent ELM creates a fully defensible, cost-effective, and highly-efficient legal hold and data preservation practice including when the hold was initiated, what they put on hold, what they communicated with relevant custodians, and when or how they monitored each custodian's compliance.
1. Ascent ELM guides and supports you through these critical steps:
2. Know the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) regarding a defensible legal hold.
3. Audit your data preservation policies and modify them to close any gaps to adhere to best practices.
4. Leverage online technology to remove human error and manage the entire legal hold with one tool.
5. Drive company-wide adoption and use of the tools to eliminate errors and improve support.