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The Challenge

FordHarrison’s challenges were closely tied to the evolution of its pricing function. As the firm formalized its approach to pricing, it quickly became clear that traditional reporting methods could not keep pace with demand. Accessing historical matter data required heavy reliance on manual processes and static reports, limiting both speed and flexibility at a time when clients were asking more probing questions about cost and value.

These internal limitations were mirrored by wider financial pressures across the legal market. BigHand’s 2026 Annual Law Firm Finance Report shows that 96% of firms raised rates in the past 12 months, yet 89% saw write-offs increase year-on-year, and 90% experienced higher discounts and debtor levels. This disconnect underscored the need for more disciplined, data-driven pricing. 

Eric Holman, CFO at FordHarrison, saw this convergence of internal and external pressure firsthand: "Pricing as a function at FordHarrison was relatively new, and it became apparent very quickly that we were not going to be able to get by with SQL queries," Holman said. "To look at historical matter performance for pricing, and to provide clients better alternative fee arrangements and better matter-level budgets as we continue to evolve our Pricing and Performance Initiative at our Firm, we needed to be able to go into those conversations with confidence."

At the same time, client expectations across the legal industry were evolving. While demand in the legal market remained strong, clients were becoming less tolerant of opaque pricing models.

"We’re seeing clients asking for greater predictability and transparency when it comes to pricing," Holman said. "They want to know what it’s going to cost and the why behind that. Firms that can clearly communicate the price and what’s behind it have a much better chance of success."

The Solution:

BigHand Business Intelligence

Recognizing that in-house tools and manual reporting would not deliver the level of insight required, FordHarrison conducted a comprehensive review of the BI market. The firm sought a solution purpose-built for law firm finance that could handle complex profitability analysis while remaining accessible to both finance professionals and lawyers.

BigHand Business Intelligence stood out for its depth, flexibility, and integration with existing workflows. FordHarrison implemented the tool to create a centralized financial data warehouse that provides role-based insights from firm-wide performance to individual matters. Critically, the platform supports self-service analytics while maintaining consistency and control over financial data.

We went out to the market and looked at pretty much every business intelligence solution we could,” Holman said. “We ended up going with Iridium, now BigHand. The revenue cube, matter profitability, matter budgeting tools, and dashboard configuration gave us a well-rounded solution that met our needs.

Excel compatibility played a decisive role in adoption, particularly for pricing work. For a pricing team handling highly tailored client scenarios, Excel often remains the primary work environment. Ensuring that advanced financial data could be accessed and manipulated directly within that environment removed friction and accelerated adoption across the team.

“On the pricing side, we’re in Excel all day long,” Holman explained. “The good thing is that our BigHand cube plays nicely with Excel. It’s not a vast departure from what we were doing previously, but the flexibility and support we get now are absolutely huge.”

Beyond pricing, FordHarrison also invested in technology designed to strengthen lawyers' commercial acumen. Lawyer-facing dashboards were introduced to make key financial and performance metrics visible within daily workflows, supported by deliberate change management. These dashboards surface key indicators, such as rates, realization, and productivity, thereby reinforcing data quality and encouraging more commercially informed behavior across the firm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Results:

The most compelling outcome of FordHarrison’s investment is a more than 50% reduction in time spent on pricing analytics. This efficiency gain has fundamentally reshaped how the pricing team operates. Instead of spending hours assembling data from multiple systems, analysts can now access comprehensive, reliable insight almost instantly, enabling faster turnaround and deeper analysis.

This shift has expanded the team’s capacity and impact. Pricing professionals are able to support more matters, explore multiple pricing scenarios, and spend more time communicating value to partners and clients. The result is faster, higher-quality pricing decisions grounded in evidence rather than approximation.

“We now have an incredible powerhouse for financial data,” Holman said. “If you need realization measures, last bill dates, or to slice data by phase or task code, you’re seconds away from it. About half of what we do at FordHarrison right now can be done from the cube, and the rest involves modeling with that data. The efficiency gains are massive, and it’s one of the best investments we’ve made on the pricing side.”

About
BigHand Business Intelligence

BigHand
Business Intelligence

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BigHand’s Legal Business Intelligence is the most advanced BI solution for law firms. It’s a flexible, autonomous, and source-agnostic data warehouse solution that replaces manual law firm finance reporting with a real-time digital overview of your financial data.

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Specifically tailored for lawyers, finance and management teams, it strips the complexity away from the mountains of information you generate. The self-service tool gives users controlled access to the appropriate legal finance data which can be quickly and easily shown through any visualization tool of choice, including PowerBI.