Robert Ambrogi Blog
Centerbase, a practice management platform for midsized law firms, is announcing today an enhanced native integration with NetDocuments that makes it the first practice management platform to natively connect matter data with ndMAX, NetDocuments’ AI-powered document intelligence system.
Centerbase says that the integration, which it will be demonstrating at ABA TECHSHOW this week in Chicago, aims to address a gap in the legal tech market: While solo and small firm tools and Big Law enterprise solutions have seen significant AI convergence over the past year, midsized firms have largely been left piecing together disconnected tools to manage their growth.
“When you look at the mid-law space, what we’re still seeing is they’re using disconnected tools — disconnected AI tools and disconnected tools in general — to manage that growth within the firm,” Rob Joyner, senior vice president of business development at Centerbase, told me during a briefing yesterday. “There was no one really focused on that mid-law layer and creating that convergence.”
How the Integration Works
The integration embeds NetDocuments AI functionality directly into Centerbase’s workflow engine, eliminating the need for users to toggle between systems or manually duplicate data entry.
In practical terms, when a new matter is created in Centerbase, the system can automatically trigger NetDocuments to create document packages, workspaces and templates based on the matter type. For a real estate closing, for example, engagement letters, workspace folders and review tasks could be generated automatically before the first client call.
Conversely, save a client contract to NetDocuments and ndMAX automatically extracts the key parties, dates, and obligations and writes them back into Centerbase, where they are immediately available for reporting and workflow automation.
In our briefing yesterday, Scott Cormier, Centerbase’s chief product officer, demonstrated how the workflow engine now includes NetDocuments as a native action type. Users configure which data elements flow to NetDocuments and which document templates get created, then the system handles execution automatically.
“Normally one of the problem areas that our customers have highlighted is sometimes I have two distinct processes — I’m setting up the matter over here, but then I’m going over to NetDocs and I’m also doing some other additional updates,” Cormier explained. “We completely eliminate that kind of double typing moment.”
Two-Phase Rollout
The integration is rolling out in two phases. Phase one, available in Centerbase’s April release, will enable matter data to flow from Centerbase to NetDocuments, triggering document creation and workspace setup.
Phase two, targeted for May or June, will enable bidirectional data flow. Documents processed through ndMAX will be able to push extracted information — parties, dates, key obligations — back into Centerbase for reporting and further workflow automation.
“Think about uploading a document, pulling out any kind of party information or important facts, putting that into the system of record so that you can report on it or you can run matter workflows on it as well,” Joyner said.
Governance and Billing for AI Usage
Beyond workflow automation, the integration addresses what Centerbase sees as a critical need for midsized firms: governance over AI adoption. The company plans to capture usage data and enable firms to track and bill for AI-related work.
“For these midsized law firms, governance can’t just be a feature for the firms,” Joyner said. “They need a system that can help them understand usage, that can actually track the usage from a billing standpoint and really work it into their workflows.”
This capability becomes particularly relevant as firms explore alternative fee arrangements, where understanding the efficiency gains from AI tools is essential to pricing work profitably.
“You can start to see the timing around those workflows and you can start to build fee structures based on the data that’s coming out of the system and it’s not just guessing,” Cormier added.
A Platform for Third-Party Integrations
Centerbase positions this NetDocuments integration as the first of what it envisions as a broader ecosystem of workflow blocks that firms can activate. Rather than standalone API integrations that require technical expertise to modify, these embedded workflow actions can be configured by firm administrators.
“Part of the bigger vision here is to have more of these workflow blocks standardized that we can allow someone to activate them,” Cormier said. “We’re really looking in 2026 to build out a lot more of this functionality.”
“At NetDocuments, we’re focused on helping legal professionals do their best work by
delivering intelligent tools within the systems they rely on every day,” Reza Parsia, vice president of strategic partnerships at NetDocuments, said in a statement: “Our integration with Centerbase reflects that commitment by bringing ndMAX AI capabilities into the workflows firms already use to manage their matters.”