At Its Momentum Conference in Dallas, Aderant Launches Next-Gen Cloud Financial Applications Aimed At Transforming Law Firm Operations

At its Momentum Global conference in Dallas today, legal technology company Aderant unveiled four new cloud-based financial management applications, marking a significant expansion of the company’s AI-powered offerings for law firms.

The new applications — Cloud Accounts Receivable (AR), Cloud General Ledger (GL), Stridyn Analytics, and askMADDI — were officially launched during this morning’s keynote address at the annual user conference.

(I am at the conference and also participated in a preview press briefing held last week).

The four applications are designed to deliver a more unified and modern user experience for law firm finance teams, with enhanced AI capabilities that enable better coordination, real-time data access, and improved efficiency in daily financial operations, the company said.

“Aderant is laser focused on delivering an unmatched client experience, and the launch of these new cloud-based financial management applications at 2025 Global Momentum will continue to raise the bar,” Chris Cartrett, president and CEO of Aderant, said in an announcement of the new features.

Cartrett said the new products represent a significant milestone in what he described as the company’s strongest period of growth. He said that 2024 was the largest growth year in the history of Aderant, adding that the company has seen increased client adoption across all product lines as law firms accelerate their move to cloud solutions.

New Cloud Applications

The company said its suite of new applications reflects its focus on enhancing the client experience through what executives at the briefing described as improvements in “people, process, and products.”

• Cloud Accounts Receivable: The cloud-based AR solution within Expert Sierra streamlines the cash receipting process, improving speed, accuracy, and visibility. Powered by MADDI, Aderant’s AI virtual associate, it automates invoice matching, eliminates manual remittance handling, and reduces paper use.
• Cloud General Ledger: Designed to enhance and automate traditionally manual general ledger processes, the cloud-based GL solution in Expert Sierra leverages AI to deliver insights and automation for querying and filtering financial information. According to Aderant, the solution aims to help firms maximize profitability and eliminate fraud through more efficient, AI-optimized decision-making.
• Stridyn Analytics: Building on the Stridyn platform launched at last year’s Momentum event, the new analytics solution unifies financial, operational, and practice management data to deliver real-time insights through a single platform. The system includes AI-powered analytics, natural language queries, and customizable dashboards that require no technical expertise to use.
• askMADDI: An extension of Aderant’s MADDI AI solution, askMADDI provides natural language query capabilities that enable users to access and understand data across Aderant’s cloud applications. Integrated into the Stridyn platform, it delivers context-aware answers and actionable intelligence.

In the media briefing, Andy Hoyt, chief technology officer at Aderant, demonstrated how these applications work together to create a unified user experience. The Stridyn home interface serves as a centralized launch point for all applications, with notifications and tasks from various systems appearing in one place.

 AI Differentiation Strategy

A significant focus of the briefing was on Aderant’s approach to AI, which executives positioned as a key differentiator in an increasingly crowded legal tech market.

Hoyt explained that Aderant’s AI strategy is built on three foundational principles: customer centricity, domain excellence, and responsible AI. Rather than simply layering generic large language models onto existing products, Aderant’s approach aims to deliver deeply integrated AI capabilities tailored to law firm operations.

“We believe our secret sauce is the strategy built on that customer centricity, the domain excellence and responsible AI,” Hoyt said.

The company’s “agentic AI” architecture includes various specialized agents designed for specific tasks, such as OCR document reading, natural language querying, and narrative generation. This approach allows for more autonomous AI actions that can reduce manual work.

Notably, one of the highlighted capabilities is AI-powered time narrative generation in the iTimekeep application. While passive time capture existed previously, the new functionality can automatically generate descriptive narratives and billing codes based on tracked activities.

According to Cartrett, what distinguishes Aderant’s offering is its ability to train AI models based on actual billing outcomes. “The secret sauce that we have …  is we’re actually able to train the model based on what we know happens with the bills that go out the door and come back. … We’re actually learning – or the technology is learning – based on what’s actually happening.”

This creates a feedback loop where the system continuously improves, ensuring that lawyer time entries comply with client billing guidelines based on past acceptance patterns rather than just preset rules.

Additional Enhancements

Beyond the four major applications, Aderant also announced new AI capabilities in iTimekeep for narrative and code generation, along with a Continuous Transaction Control (CTC) module in BillBlast to help international firms comply with global tax regulations.

Josiah Chaves, who recently moved into the chief client officer role at Aderant, said that the new solutions focus on three core outcomes:

• Easier access to information for better business decision-making.
• Improved auditability of financial applications to identify potential fraud.
• Enhanced ease of use through one-touch technology and automation.

During the press demonstration, Hoyt showcased how the Stridyn Analytics platform offers extensive reporting capabilities, with hundreds of out-of-the-box reports and the ability to create custom reports through an intuitive interface. The platform leverages AI to help users understand and interact with their data, offering natural language query capabilities across all integrated applications.

Availability and Integration

These new cloud applications will be available to existing Aderant Sierra clients without requiring major migration efforts. “Our clients only have to suck in air and blow it out and they receive a new GL, they’re receiving a new AR,, they’re also starting to get AI across all of their different applications that already exist” Cartrett sai.

When asked about potential sunsetting of older products, Cartrett confirmed that no existing applications would be discontinued. He explained that the separate branding of different products (like iTimekeep and Onyx) exists largely for change management purposes, allowing clients to adopt components incrementally rather than requiring full-suite implementations.

“We would love for them to take on the full suite, and we just refer to it as the compliance suite. But oftentimes they can only bite off one piece at a time,” Cartrett said.

According to company executives, early adopters are already seeing significant efficiency gains. Cartrett mentioned one “massive law firm” that recently moved from on-premises software to Sierra and saw their pre-bill processing time drop by half.

If you are attending the Momentum Global conference, you can see demonstrations of the new applications and take advantage of special pricing promotions available only to attendees.

Aderant CEO Chris Cartrett on the Company’s Cloud-First Strategy and New Cloud Platform Stridyn