Case Study: Atlas Legal Group

Type: Fictional reference client used across Modules 3-7 Sector: Small law firm (immigration and small business law) Size: 12 staff (2 partners, 4 associates, 2 paralegals, 3 admin, 1 part-time bookkeeper) Location: Single office, Pacific Northwest US Annual revenue: ~$2.4M

Intake Brief

Atlas Legal Group was referred to you by a mutual contact. The managing partner, Dana Okafor, asked for "help with our data — we know it's a mess but we don't know where to start." A 30-minute discovery call surfaced the following.

Business context

Atlas handles roughly 400 active matters at any time. About 60% are immigration cases (visa petitions, naturalization, removal defense) and 40% are small business formation, contracts, and basic employment matters. The firm has been operating since 2011.

The partners want to: - Reduce time spent reconciling client information across systems - Respond to a recent state bar audit finding about inconsistent matter records - Eventually offer a client portal, but "the data isn't ready" - Avoid getting "ripped off by another vendor" — they had a bad experience with a $40K case management migration in 2022 that never fully launched

Systems in scope

• Clio Manage (case management SaaS) — system of record for matters, contacts, time entries, billing
• QuickBooks Online — accounting, payroll, vendor payments
• Microsoft 365 — email, document storage in OneDrive/SharePoint, shared Excel files
• A custom Access database built by a former associate in 2018, still used by paralegals to track immigration filing deadlines
• Three shared Excel workbooks (matter intake log, client conflicts log, marketing leads) maintained on a shared OneDrive folder
• Calendly for consultation booking, syncing to Outlook

Current pain points (verbatim from discovery call)

"A client's name is spelled three different ways across Clio, QuickBooks, and the Access database. When we try to run a financial report by client we have to manually reconcile."

"The Access database has the visa deadlines but it doesn't talk to Clio. If a paralegal forgets to update both, we miss things. Last quarter we almost blew an I-130 deadline because of this."

"The state bar wanted to see all communications related to a specific matter from 2019. It took us four days to compile because emails are in Outlook, documents are in SharePoint, and matter notes are in Clio."

"Our bookkeeper retires next year. Whoever replaces her is going to need everything to be more standardized."

"We tried to integrate Clio and QuickBooks once. The accountant gave up because the client records didn't match."

Stakeholders

• Dana Okafor, managing partner — sponsor and budget authority. Pragmatic, technically literate enough to read a schema but not a developer.
• Marcus Chen, senior associate — informal "tech lead." Set up Calendly, troubleshoots Clio, maintains the Excel workbooks.
• Linda Reeves, lead paralegal — owner of the Access database. Defensive about it because it works for her workflow.
• Patricia Kim, bookkeeper (retiring) — knows where every QuickBooks irregularity comes from. Will not be available after Q4.

Constraints

• Budget for the assessment + first phase: ~$15K. Open to more if results are demonstrated.
• Cannot disrupt billable work during the engagement
• Cannot move client data outside the US
• Subject to state bar confidentiality rules
• No on-staff IT person; partners cannot evaluate technical proposals on their merits

Artifacts available for async review

• A schema export from the Access database (SQL DDL)
• Sample CSV exports from Clio (matters, contacts, time entries — last 90 days, redacted)
• A QuickBooks chart of accounts and a sample customer list
• The three shared Excel workbooks (cleaned of identifying info)
• The state bar audit finding letter (one page, redacted)

Initial Maturity Map Findings (for Modules 4-7)

After Session 1, the artifact review, and a partial introspection run on the Access database and the Clio CSV exports using SDC Agents SMB, you arrive at the following working scores. Use these as the starting point for the Module 4 exercise.

Floor: min(Schema Integrity, Constraint Enforcement, Semantic Identity) = 1

The derived dimensions are capped at 1 by the Semantic Identity score, even though they each rate 2 in isolation. This is the central finding to communicate in Session 2.

Anomaly flags from introspection

From the SDC Agents SMB introspection of the Access database clients table:

• near_duplicate_identifier on client_name (47 instances)
• mixed_types on phone (some strings with parentheses, some plain digits, some empty)
• unparseable_dates on intake_date (3 rows with 00/00/0000)
• format_drift on case_number (two distinct formats coexist, suggesting a 2019 numbering change with no migration)

From the Clio CSV introspection:

• outlier_count on time_entry_minutes (one entry of 9,999 minutes — likely a fat-finger)
• No critical anomalies on the matters export

These flags become direct evidence in the Maturity Map report.

Use across modules

• Module 3 — draft an interview agenda from the intake brief. Pick the 3 first questions per dimension. List artifacts to request.
• Module 4 — score from the working scores above using the rubric. Write a one-page executive summary. Anticipate three client reactions.
• Module 5 — produce a prioritized intervention sequence and a deployment recommendation (likely SDCforSMB). Identify a scenario where SDC is not the answer for Atlas.
• Module 6 — (lab) install SDCforSMB and connect a CSV that simulates the Clio export.
• Module 7 — produce a phased proposal in the $25K-$60K range using the template, with a specific exclusion related to the failed 2022 Clio↔QuickBooks integration.