Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Against the tide: Roanoke's Automated Horizons eases troubling tasks
Automated Horizons helps law firms tackle technology and manage their practices better.
Photos by STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS The Roanoke Times
Britt Lorish Knuttgen (left), president of Automated Horizons, goes over information earlier this month with client Rhonda Weeks (center) of the law firm Glenn Robinson & Cathey and Automated Horizons technology consultant Kristin Burke at Weeks' office on Norfolk Avenue in Roanoke.
Britt Lorish Knuttgen (left) and Kristin Burke install software at the Glenn Robinson & Cathey law firm. Knuttgen said sales at Automated Horizons are up about 20 percent from last year. She has been an increase in out-of-state and international clients.
Erick Anderson (left), senior network engineer, and Lauren Dunne (right), legal technology consultant, discuss work with Britt Lorish Knuttgen, president and owner of Automated Horizons. The company is located in Old Southwest.
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Lawyers notoriously lack technological savvy, but one Roanoke business is on standby to pilot them into a digital future.
"I'm losing-my-mind busy," said Britt Lorish Knuttgen, owner and president of Automated Horizons, a computer networking and legal technology consulting firm.
Legal technology consultants, in short, are for-hire information technology departments. They install hardware and software, mentor firms on management strategies, train employees to use technology and analyze work flow. Automated Horizons does "soup to nuts" for firms, even coordinating phone and copy machine service if needed, Knuttgen said.
Knuttgen, 38, is so busy, she added a fourth consultant to the firm in October, plans to hire another and was able to give employees their annual raise this year.
The recession has pressured law firms to cut overhead costs, prompting them to employ technology rather than more workers. That shift, then, leads to investment in consulting.
Forty-six percent of lawyers and law firms used consultants to resolve computer problems this year, up 4 percentage points from a year earlier, according to the American Bar Association's 2009 Legal Technology Survey Report. More specifically, 70 percent of small firms that responded to the survey used consultants' recommendations in 2009.
"A consultant is valuable in separating the glitz from the guts," said Roanoke Circuit Court Judge Clifford Weckstein, an Automated Horizons client for about six years.
Without experts' guidance, a lawyer's laptop could easily double as a paperweight, he added.
"We're seeing that law firms are more and more recognizing the benefit of outside help," said Larry Smith, director of the ABA Law Practice Management Section, which hosts a legal technology conference and expo every year. Knuttgen serves on the planning board for the conference and has spoken at and attended them in the past, making her a prominent voice in the industry while the business expands.
Automated Horizon's gross sales are up about 20 percent from 2008, with $1.4 million expected this year, she said. Out-of-state work has grown 20 percent in the past year for the firm, and international clients are up 5 percent. Knuttgen also plans to launch a national marketing campaign next year as a member of Affinity Consulting Group, a national consortium of legal tech consulting firms.
Her secret to business success? It's as easy as watching the legal profession change along with technology.
In the 1990s, Knuttgen worked as a litigation paralegal at Roanoke's Gentry, Locke, Rakes & Moore LLP. When Frith, Anderson & Peake PC splintered from it to form a new practice in 1997, she went with the group.
"They bought all this software and said 'OK, now what do we do with it?' " she said. "I've been a gadget geek all my life, so I took it and ran with it." She became the unofficial technology expert.
Then the idea followed.
"What do law firms do that don't have someone like me?" she said, remembering her "Eureka!" moment. "There had to be a market."
Knuttgen started the firm in June 2000 with her husband at the time, Dustin. She split her time between Automated Horizons and Frith at first. Within two years, she was a full-time consultant.
About one in every 20 firms Knuttgen handles is a small practice splitting from a larger one, similar to her experience with Frith, she said.
"Law firms are looking to cut their least-profitable departments," she said. "We're right there waiting" when lawyers spin off to start new firms, she added.
On the initial visit to Automated Horizons' office in Old Southwest, the bright blue walls, white kitchenette and two overly friendly black cats, Tux and Onyx, give the one-floor office a cozy, homelike vibe for the business' staff of nine.
But behind closed doors, technology takes over. Shelves stacked floor to ceiling with computer servers pack the network engineers' offices, ready for deployment to clients.
