Customer Stories
Curata Partners chooses the fastest route to a modern workplace
Boutique firm implements iManage Cloud solutions to meet its productivity goals and serve clients better
Curata Partners is a boutique law firm in Virginia specializing in land use and zoning law. The team is passionate about making the local community a better place and seeks the best legal solutions for all. Having quickly outgrown Microsoft SharePoint’s limited document management functionality, Curata sought a scalable cloud-native platform that could help simplify version control. The firm increased productivity by implementing a suite of iManage solutions with intuitive, automated version control. Curata Partners attorneys now spend less time searching and archiving and more time engaging with clients.
The business challenge
Supporting a culture of curiosity and collaboration
An elite team of legal specialists founded Curata Partners in 2024, bringing decades of land use, zoning, and entitlements knowledge to the enterprise, along with a strong familiarity with rapidly changing local regulations. The firm works with both buyers and sellers, and their cases can last several years.
“We pride ourselves on being local people who live alongside the clients we represent. Curata Partners is passionate about building communities that our neighbors will appreciate and future generations can be proud of,” explained Michael Haight, Chief Operations Officer at Curata Partners.
To achieve this, the firm goes above and beyond legal knowledge. Haight describes a culture of curiosity and collaboration, of building close relationships with stakeholders on both sides of a matter, and of working to understand all perspectives. The team focuses on balanced outcomes.
Fast access to the right documents, full visibility of each clause and article in current and previous versions of contracts, and plenty of time to talk to stakeholders are essential. The firm used SharePoint for document management initially, but as the team grew, Haight wanted to make version control easier and store every iteration of a document centrally.
“When multiple people are working on one document but can’t collaborate in real time, they have to remember to save the latest version, exit the app, and email that version to a colleague,” recalled Haight. “A document might go through 15 revisions. If we didn’t save every version and a client asked to include an article we’d taken out several months ago, we’d need to find out if that version was clearly tagged and on record.”
Curata Partners also wanted to provide a modern workplace comparable to the attorney experience at large global firms. And because the staff divide their time between in-office and remote working, the firm needed a secure cloud solution that was easy to access
and didn’t require a VPN.
Headquarters
Chantilly, Virginia, US
Industry
Legal
Products
Benefits
- Enhanced version control
- Improved productivity
- Better client engagement
- Easy, secure remote access
I recommend iManage to any small firm looking to make their knowledge workers more efficient. You’re not just getting a great platform, you’re getting great support as well.
Michael Haight, Chief Operations Officer, Curata Partners
The solution
Market analysis was almost a formality
Curata Partners compared two leading platforms — iManage and NetDocuments. “iManage was always the front-runner because it has great functionality and most of our attorneys have used it before,” said Haight. “Our market analysis was almost a formality to check the pricing. Going with iManage for the fastest route to productivity was a no-brainer.”
The firm went live with iManage just six weeks after deciding to replace SharePoint, migrating 112 GB of historical data into the cloud and onboarding all 10 employees. Curata ran with iManage Work 10 in the Cloud, iManage Share, and iManage Drive.
“The installation and migration were quick and easy. It took just 10 to 15 minutes to set iManage up on each device,” Haight recalled. “Four colleagues who were new to iManage commented on how intuitive the platform is.” This is key because a steep learning curve can be a deal breaker for high adoption rates.
Curata Partners worked with iManage throughout the implementation and for ongoing support. Haight praised the team’s speed and responsiveness, adding, “As a small business, we sometimes feel like we’re competing against large enterprises for our vendors’ attention. It was so refreshing to get our tickets answered promptly so we could move at pace.”
Once the team was onboarded to iManage, Curata Partners decommissioned the prior solution and now uses iManage as its official project system of record. With iManage widgets embedded into Microsoft applications, storing documents and saving new versions is simple. What’s more, the iManage Drive file structure resembles a Microsoft file directory, making it easy for new starters to get up to speed and navigate the platform.
The team uses iManage Share to collaborate on documents, eliminating the need to manually save a new version with each amendment. And by integrating iManage Work 10 in the Cloud with the firm’s Microsoft security solution, user authentication when logging in remotely is both easier and faster than logging on via a VPN.
Business outcomes
Full audit trail, more time for clients
Curata Partners’ team is more efficient and appreciates the strict version control with iManage. They can restore previous versions if needed in just a few clicks, and every iteration of any saved document, such as a contract, is readily available. Team members collaborate on documents simultaneously without the chore of manually saving, exiting, and sending a document to the next person to work on.
Attorneys easily store documents and emails directly in iManage or by clicking the iManage widget in Microsoft Office applications, which accommodates multiple working styles. Remote workers can be productive from anywhere without losing time on complex log-in processes or manually filing documents.
“I want my team to store everything and create a full audit trail of every project, and now they don’t need to choose the most critical versions — we can store all of them on the cloud,” said Haight. “I sleep better at night knowing our documents are correctly stored, named, tagged, and can be easily accessed by the right people at the right time in iManage.”
Anyone on the team can quickly find relevant documents in iManage, tapping historical knowledge for future cases. The firm also achieved its goal of increased efficiency, which translates to more time spent on outreach, helping clients, and providing more personalized service.
“I recommend iManage to any small firm looking to make their knowledge workers more efficient. You’re not just getting a great platform, you’re getting great support as well,” concluded Haight. “We had one point of contact for everything from signing the contract to implementation and ongoing support. It’s a game changer.”
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