Everything you need to know about Implementation Acceleration

Implementation Acceleration helps firms implement Clio Operate faster and with greater confidence by providing starter content (accelerators), workflow patterns, and practical guidance drawn from real implementations.

Instead of starting from scratch, clients can leverage proven patterns and pre-built starter components that reflect how legal teams successfully use Clio Operate in practice. This approach reduces implementation time, improves consistency, and accelerates the delivery of value.

Learn more about our different tools to support your implementation…

Implementation Guidance

Implementation Guidance

Implementation Guidance provides practical advice and design recommendations for using Clio Operate features effectively.

These resources outline different implementation approaches, highlight best practices, and explain the advantages and trade-offs of different approaches to help firms make informed design decisions.

Example topics include:

  • Managing inbound email
  • External conflict checking

Implementation Guidance provides practical advice and recommended approaches for implementing Clio Operate effectively.

Drawing on experience from real-world implementations, this guidance helps organisations understand how best to use platform features, functionality, and configuration approaches to support efficient and scalable solutions.

Rather than starting from scratch or learning through trial and error, teams can leverage proven implementation patterns and practical recommendations to accelerate their implementation journey.

Practical Experience, Applied

Implementation Guidance is developed from hands-on experience across many implementations. It utilises lessons learned, common patterns, and practical design considerations that help organisations make informed decisions when configuring and deploying solutions.

Each piece of guidance focuses on a specific capability or implementation challenge, explaining:

  • Different ways the feature or capability can be implemented
  • When particular approaches may be most appropriate 
  • Advantages and trade-offs of different design choices 
  • Practical considerations for implementation and ongoing operation

This enables organisations to select the approach that best aligns with their business processes, technical environment, and operational requirements.

Supporting Faster, Better Implementations

By providing clear guidance on how to use platform capabilities effectively, Implementation Guidance helps organisations:

  • Reduce time spent researching or experimenting with configuration approaches
  • Avoid common implementation pitfalls
  • Apply proven patterns and practices
  • Design solutions that are scalable and maintainable

Implementation Guidance complements Accelerators and Workflow Patterns, helping organisations not only implement solutions faster, but also implement them well.

Implementation Guidance may cover a wide range of implementation considerations, such as:

  • Approaches for ingesting and managing inbound email
  • Implementing external conflict checking processes with external datasets
  • Best practices for configuration management and release processes 

Each topic focuses on helping organisations make informed implementation decisions based on practical experience and common industry patterns. Together with Accelerators, Implementation Guidance forms part of the Implementation Acceleration approach, helping organisations implement Clio Operate with greater speed, structure, and confidence.

 
 

Accelerator Modules

Accelerator Modules

Accelerators help firms start implementation with proven foundations rather than a blank page.

Built from real-world Clio Operate implementations, Accelerators provide structured starting points for common legal operational scenarios. They include pre-designed configurations, workflows, and supporting guidance that significantly reduce the time required to design and build solutions from scratch.

Accelerators are designed to speed up implementation while maintaining flexibility. They provide the foundational configuration for a subject area, enabling teams to focus their time on tailoring the solution to their specific business needs rather than building core components from the ground up.

Designed as Foundations — Not Plug-and-Play Solutions

Accelerators are not intended to be deployed as plug-and-play solutions.

Instead, they provide the foundational configuration for a particular subject area, which organisations can build upon to deliver their full business solution.

Every firm operates differently, and it is the responsibility of those implementing an Accelerator to ensure the final solution:

  • Meets their specific business requirements
  • Aligns with internal policies and procedures
  • Complies with relevant regulatory and legislative obligations

Accelerators should therefore be treated as structured starting points, not finished implementations.

Accelerator packs fall into two categories: Functional Accelerators and Micro Solutions.

Faster Implementation, Proven Foundations

By providing pre-designed configuration and practical implementation guidance, Accelerators enable organisations to:

  • Reduce solution design time
  • Start implementation with proven patterns
  • Focus effort on tailoring solutions rather than building from scratch
  • Deliver value from Clio Operate more quickly

Functional Accelerator Packs

Functional Accelerator Packs provide comprehensive solutions for complex processes that require multiple interlinked components within Clio Operate.

These packs combine elements such as work types, portals, workflows, and data capture to deliver structured solutions for common operational scenarios.

Example use cases include:

  • Client onboarding
  • Offers

In addition to the new style functional accelerators, we also have Legacy Accelerator Packs, which are earlier accelerator content developed in earlier versions of Clio Operate.

These packs are similar in structure to Functional Accelerators and typically include foundational configuration for more complex operational processes, such as work types, workflows, portals, and supporting components.

However, Legacy Accelerator Packs differ from current Functional Accelerators in several important ways:

  • They do not include implementation guidance or notes
  • They may not leverage the latest Clio Operate product features
  • They may not reflect current recommended implementation approaches

Users adopting a Legacy Accelerator Pack should carefully review and validate the configuration and processes described, and consider how the design may need to be updated, extended, or modernised to align with current product capabilities and their organisation’s specific requirements.

In time we plan to review and refresh these accelerators, however they are still a useful and beneficial tool to accelerate implementation.

Adapting an Accelerator to Your Implementation

Users of accelerators should carefully review and validate the designs, configuration, and processes included within an Accelerator before implementing them.

Accelerator documentation primarily describes the “out-of-the-box” configuration provided by the accelerator. It should be used to evaluate:

  • What may need to be added
  • What may need to be removed
  • What may need to be modified to meet the organisation’s needs

To support this process, implementation notes are provided within accelerator design documents. These notes highlight considerations, potential variations, and areas where firms may want to adapt the solution during their implementation.

 
 

Micro Solutions

Micro Solutions provide smaller, focused capabilities that address specific operational needs, and are designed to be reusable across different practice areas/work types.

They typically include a small number of connected components such as work types, workflows, or data capture elements, making them quick to adopt and easy to implement.

Example use cases include:

  • Mediation
  • FOA and records requests
     
 
 

Workflow Patterns

Workflow Patterns are pre-built workflow templates that capture common workflow patterns used across many Clio Operate implementations.

These templates help firms implement proven workflow logic quickly while maintaining flexibility to tailor processes to their own needs.

Example use cases include:

  • Locking down or restricting access to cases
  • Limitation date calculators
     
 
 
 
 

Accelerator Recipe Cards

Accelerator Recipe Cards

Accelerator Recipe Cards define how different accelerators and sample configuration can be combined to support specific areas of legal work.

While individual accelerators provide distinct solutions for particular processes or operational capabilities, most legal practice areas require multiple processes working together. Recipe Cards bring these components together to form a collection of accelerators and sample configuration that can form the foundation for implementing a practice area solution.

You can think of Accelerators as the ingredients, and Recipe Cards as the recipe that combines those ingredients into a practical solution.

Example: Personal Injury Recipe Card

A Personal Injury practice area implementation may require a combination of common accelerators, practice-specific accelerators and sample ‘starter’ work types for things like instructions and matters, this is to provide the ability to visualise and demo what an implemented solution could look like.

A Personal Injury Recipe Card might include:

Common accelerators:

  • Proceedings
  • Offers
  • Forms of Authority (FOA) & Record Requests
  • Managing Witnesses

Personal Injury specific accelerators:

  • Managing CRU
  • Personal Injury limitation date calculator

Sample Configuration:

  • A sample personal injury instruction work type, including sample participant roles, key dates, portal, etc.
  • A sample personal injury matter work type, including sample participant roles, key dates, portal, etc.
  • Sample data capture such as injury details
  • Sample budgets for capturing claimed amounts/reserves

Together, these components form a foundation for designing and implementing a Personal Injury practice area, which can then be tailored to reflect the firm’s specific processes, policies, and regulatory requirements.

Guidance, Not Prescriptive Solutions

Recipe Cards are intended to provide guidance and inspiration, rather than prescriptive implementation designs.

Different firms structure their processes in different ways, and organisations should review the accelerators listed within a Recipe Card to determine:

  • Which accelerators are relevant to their needs
  • How those accelerators should be adapted
  • What additional configuration may be required

Recipe Cards should therefore be viewed as illustrative combinations of accelerators that help guide implementation planning.

By showing how accelerators can be combined into practical solutions, Recipe Cards help firms:

  • Visualise how practice area solutions can be assembled
  • Identify relevant accelerators more quickly
  • Design practice-specific solutions more efficiently
  • Accelerate overall implementation planning

Together with Accelerators, Recipe Cards form part of the Implementation Acceleration approach, helping organisations implement Clio Operate with greater speed, structure, and confidence.