A lot of interest in this post, and I think more than a few misunderstandings/misconceptions from this poster no doubt as a result of red wine. Though I agree that in many cases firms wouldn't change systems unless there was a need, to suggest there is no advantage in doing so is a little one dimensional and if you're a travelling consultant yourself I certainly hope you don't bring that attitude to your clients! It's an unsustainable argument to suggest that there aren't intrinsic advantages in new technologies where they are deployed well, and you obviously have never worked in a law firm if you don't think there are significant opportunities to improve back office productivity. Oh my. I'm not going to touch the Allens thing, suffice it to say I've also heard far more on this subject than you describe. As for Gadens - they probably weren't mentioned because (if you were around then too) they bought 3E going on 3 years ago and if you look at the names above it seems pretty clear Elite's announcement here wasn't looking back that far. They don't mention a number of other 3E clients who all made purchasing decisions back then, so doesn't seem to be any impropriety there. I heard the same stories you did about Gadens, albeit with acknowledgements that there were mistakes made in the deployment as much as it was system related. Regardless, this was several years ago so not really relevant to a discussion about the state of play today unless you're an Aderant rep looking for a way to dig up old bones. There are very specific differences between 3E and Expert, the primary one being 3E is a new solution, Expert is an updated solution, so fundamentally different there. Expert uses a 3rd party workflow solution, 3E has built in workflow, again a very significant difference. As for technology stack the fact that 3E's workflow is built in does not make the whole system proprietary any more than using Windows Workflow makes Expert more 'aligned' with Microsoft. I know that's the argument but the only people I've heard towing that line are Aderant reps, and it's just not sustainable on the facts (though good job to Aderant for selling this story well). I'll leave it to Elite or Aderant to comment on why their solution is better. In short there some very clear and significant differences between the two solutions that will no doubt represent different value to different firms. I don't think there can be any doubt that firms should look very closely at their options before making a decision. Not to do so would simply be foolhardy given the ramifications and the level of investment involved.