Underpay junior staff significantly and established a sink or swim mentality for new hires. Placed junior employees in traditionally senior roles because of lack of senior staff. Had a relatively flat organizational structure with very few opportunities for vertical movement, specifically from mid-level to management. Bonuses were cut annually and were not based on individual performance, but performance of the company as a whole.
Were previously owned by an equity company which led to a few major issues. Laid off senior staff and hired junior staff to replace to help bottom line while impairing senior knowledge. Kept departments slim with 1 or 2 people with specific product knowledge for individual product offerings. Management (director and above) were generally brought in from the outside instead of promoted from within which led to a management team who didn't understand the product or processes (legal sales process and implementation process). Internal systems were introduced as the equity companies standards without evaluation of business needs and goals.
Won't let go of legacy products. Poor execution of horizontal development. Tried to acquire companies to fill gaps in product offering. Flopped most of them time.
At one point there was a complete breakdown of management and organization with a mass exodus of junior and senior employees all the way to managers, directors and VPs. I've heard it's gotten better, and I've heard it's gotten worse.
While product meets the needs for today, there is an unlikely future for it. Luckily for Aderant, the legal industry is generally late adopters (10-15 years behind). As cloud computing and SaaS continue to grow in both product offering, dynamic flexibility and increased security, companies like Aderant will fade away. Aderant has tried to convert to a cloud based product several times in the past (3-4 times) and have failed with flying colors. The product is on a dying code base and the organization has the feel of an old broken western town.
