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innovation

SmartPaTH Plus

SmartPaTH Plus

Over a decade ago, we built SmartPaTH. At the time, it was revolutionary: legal project management, process improvement and data analytics working together to give clients clarity, efficiency and control. It changed the way we approached the practice of law.

But the world evolved. Technology leapt forward, AI matured and business cycles accelerated. From the beginning, we intended SmartPaTH to be a living, learning system of legal service delivery.  With our new iteration, SmartPaTH Plus, we have leveraged proven experience, lessons from every engagement and the latest AI and technology to create a platform that delivers smarter, faster and more adaptable legal solutions.

The SmartPaTH Plus Advantage

  • Easier and more efficient planning, budgeting, execution and monitoring of client engagements powered by a purpose-built suite of proprietary and licensed practice innovation tools, including budget and work planning, matter and portfolio management, document analytics, document automation, and transaction management software.
  • Velocity. With AI integrated across more than 100 purpose-built workflows — and drawing on 12 years of continuously collected, structured engagement data — we accelerate research, drafting, review, and analysis so that tasks once requiring days can be completed in hours.
  • Better analytics and access to information and subsequent knowledge transfer, which enhances our ability to identify and implement best practices.
  • Clients receive more of their senior attorney’s focused attention and time, as AI-assisted tools handle routine research, initial drafting, and document review — always subject to human review, verification, and refinement — freeing senior lawyers to concentrate on strategy, legal analysis, and counsel.
  • More efficient and effective tracking and reporting capabilities, which provide a clearer view of what lawyers are doing and when,
  • Enhanced billing approaches that leverage data and proprietary tools to drive predictability and expand value-based fee options beyond traditional hourly rates.
  • A firmwide AI enablement and training program that ensures our lawyers are equipped to use AI responsibly and effectively, so that our clients benefit from disciplined, organization-wide technological fluency.

Thompson Hine. Always Innovating. Always Advancing.

SmartPaTH Plus continues to rest upon four philosophical and practical pillars, which define value for our clients:

  • Employing formal Legal Project Management processes to optimally plan, execute and monitor matter progress.
  • Drawing from more than a decade of rich matter data and utilizing other predictive financial tools to offer not only standard Value-Based Pricing, but also “win/win” alternatives to standard hourly rates.
  • Adopting a Flexible Staffing approach to engagements, ensuring that resources are deployed more strategically and at the proper levels.
  • Building Process Efficiency around the characteristics shared by similar matters to streamline our work and reduce costs firmwide.

The following is an overview the current SmartPaTH Plus suite of practice innovation tools — a collection of proprietary and integrated technologies purpose-built to support practice efficiency and client service at every stage of an engagement.

Powerful Proprietary Tools (Developed In-House)

  • Budget & Work Planning (BWP) – We built and continue to enhance the data-driven engine of SmartPaTH Plus. BWP draws upon more than a decade of rich historical matter data and combines it with current actuals and AI algorithms, enabling us to determine the exact resources required to deliver a service, as well as the specific steps and staff. It then allows us to track all activities, share progress with internal teams and clients, and quickly make any necessary adjustments. BWP is one component of a broader suite of practice innovation tools that work in concert; it does not operate in isolation but supports our matter management, document analytics, and AI platforms to deliver a unified engagement experience.
  • Matter & Portfolio Management (MPM) – This highly customizable database and data aggregation tool pulls matters from the firm’s financial and various other systems, enabling a one-stop, big picture look at any matter or portfolio. This increases visibility of matters and allows us to measure progress against legal objectives and budget. And MPM’s rich reporting capabilities allow us to generate detailed status reports for clients or internal teams at any time.
  • SmartSTHaff – This software tool allows us to more strategically, efficiently and equitably find and assign work across multiple offices and time zones. Associates can now provide an accurate snapshot of their skills, competencies, and current availability and assignments, so partners have a streamlined way to request assistance, with all of the relevant information at their fingertips.
  • Cognitext – This custom-built AI tool, reviews client websites for language that may create legal or regulatory risk, categorizes risk levels, and suggests contextually appropriate alternatives—delivering a service that was not previously feasible at scale.
  • RIF Analysis – We have also developed a proprietary reduction-in-force analysis tool that brings structured, data-informed rigor to workforce restructuring matters.

In addition to the specific tools and platforms listed here, we regularly create new and custom tools (ranging from simple electronic file cabinets to complex databases created for mass tort cases) as may be needed for specific matters and client collaboration. These practice-specific applications illustrate our commitment to building technology around the actual work our lawyers do, rather than asking our lawyers to adapt their work to generic tools.

Smart Software (Licensed)

  • Document Analytics – Our document analytics tool not only extracts but now summarizes specific document language, e.g., clauses, so our attorneys don’t have to spend their time – and clients’ money – manually searching through what can be tens of thousands of pages of documents. Unlike people, these tools never get tired and they don’t make mistakes. Attorneys, of course, will always supervise and review the results and make all necessary additions and changes. The increased efficiency we achieve by using this tool translates to lower labor costs for clients. In fact, in some instances, we have reduced our document review time by 50%, allowing our attorneys to focus more of their time on higher-value cognitive tasks, legal analysis, strategy and counsel.
  • Transaction & Closing Management – When integrated with our other systems, our transaction management software standardizes and organizes the closing process, including managing closing checklists and making sure everything gets signed. Multiple team members can use the platform at the same time, e.g., on different parts of a closing checklist, without worrying about version control or accidental overwriting. This tool also provides greater visibility, allowing us to see and report on everything related to a deal in one place. Gone are the days of big teams assembled in a room, compiling binders in Word. Now closing binders can be prepared, and even formatted, at the touch of a button. When combined with our document analytics software we estimate that this tool saved us 50% on one deal alone.
  • Document Automation – Our document automation software allows us to create detailed questionnaires for completion by clients, third parties or Thompson Hine team members, as appropriate, then apply logic to keywords, phrases or clauses to generate complete and highly sophisticated first document drafts for attorney supplementation and review.
  • Legal Analytics – We use a natural language processing machine learning tool to deliver case resolutions, damages, remedies, findings and accurate counsel and party data. For example, it allows us to consider how long a particular judge typically takes to rule on a matter, helping us predict the timing and likely outcomes of litigation strategy to support our allocations for budgeting and workflow.
  • Generative AI Legal Assistance – We licensed a legal-trained generative AI assistant that aids with document Q&As and provides sophisticated “brainstorming” assistance via the generation of ideas and potential arguments and strategies. Our lawyers have developed more than 100 AI-enabled workflows that incorporate interactions with AI tools to perform common tasks associated with client engagements—including research, first-draft generation, summarization, contract analysis, and sequential multi-step review processes. These workflows transform AI from a standalone novelty into a scalable, repeatable component of legal service delivery. In addition, the tool provides a secure document repository enabling our teams to upload, organize, and analyze large volumes of documents with AI-powered extraction of key data points. The tool extends this capability into a collaborative workspace, allowing team members and, where appropriate, external partners to work together while maintaining controlled access to sensitive information.