The new year begins with news of a new chief executive at Aderant, a global provider of business management software for law firms. Effective today, Chris Cartrett is succeeding Deane Price as the company’s CEO.
The move had been planned since July 2021, when the company announced that Price would be stepping down to pursue other opportunities and promoted Cartrett to president, priming him to take over the CEO position. He remains president in addition to becoming CEO.
Cartrett has been with Atlanta-based Aderant since 2014, coming to the company from Thomson Reuters, where he had most recently been vice president, sales and account management, for large law firms.
He started at Aderant in the position of senior vice president of strategy and growth. In 2017, he was promoted to executive vice president, and then named president last July.
Over the past six months, Cartrett and Price worked closely with one another to ensure a smooth leadership transition, the company said.
As president and CEO, Cartrett says, he plans to take aggressive steps to further the company’s cloud-first strategy throughout its suite of solutions. In addition, he will focus company resources on building and enhancing technology that fosters greater alignment between law firms’ front and back offices, breaking down silos to improve universal access to information and increase operational efficiency.
“There are a lot of transformational things happening in legal tech right now and I am confident that Aderant will be a driving influence in the industry’s future direction,” Cartrett says. “Law firms are being inundated with new challenges, from outside counsel guidelines to complexities in billing, and their clients are requiring accountability and performance transparency like never before.
“This is where I know that Aderant can affect real change for firms. Aderant’s secret sauce has been building and delivering the solutions firms need to effortlessly meet clients’ most stringent requirements. Our focus now remains the same, help law firms run a better business.”
Price is leaving Aderant to pursue other opportunities with Roper Technologies, Aderant’s parent company. She started at Aderant in 2011 as CFO, then became COO in 2014. She was named CEO in 2017.
When Price joined Aderant in 2011, the company had one product, the Aderant Expert practice management system. Today, the company has a portfolio of products that also includes Handshake and Drive for knowledge management; iTimekeep, OCG Live and Thrive for timekeeping and compliance; BillBlast for e-billing; CompuLaw for docketing and calendaring; and Expert Case for legal case management.
