Saalfield Shad

Blake Cole, a shareholder at Saalfield Shad, oversaw about 15 professionals working roughly 125 active cases and spent countless hours chasing status updates. Team meetings ran long as inefficient status hunts, Outlook served as a patchwork task system, and simple questions required multiple emails or hallway conversations. The scramble spilled into personal time—worrying about deadlines at kids’ soccer practice and during college football—and led him to tell partners the firm had to fix file management or he might not keep up.

After demoing more than a dozen case management options, the firm chose Filevine for customization of deadline chains, task flows, and practice-specific templates. Since January 2023, Saalfield Shad has adopted nearly the full Filevine suite—Core, Docs+, Periscope, Vinesign, Depositions by Filevine (including Copilot), and LOIS. Cole uses centralized case data, AI activity summaries, deposition search/topics, and LOIS chat to retrieve case insights and run files from anywhere.

Cole estimates Filevine saves him 3–5 unbillable hours per week (about 152–260 hours per year, ~200 hours annually per partner) previously spent in meetings and administrative catch-up. With Depositions by Filevine, he can send client reports within hours—embedding video clips—instead of waiting up to two weeks for synced transcripts and videos. Copilot and custom deposition topics help him locate testimony on the spot, and LOIS gives faster answers on client updates and upcoming work, improving peace of mind around deadlines and work–life balance.

• • Customizable deadline chains, task flows, and templates mattered more than rigid off-the-shelf tools for a litigation defense practice.
• • Centralizing case data plus AI summarization/chat (LOIS) can reclaim several unbillable hours per week for partners managing large caseloads.
• • In-deposition search and faster client reporting (hours vs. weeks) improve both advocacy performance and client communication.