Marlstone Legal

Renewal: On the 27 May 2026 call, Elliot Kirkby, Operations Director, said the brain works well and the data is fresh. He said they will keep the Growth plan as is for the 1 Apr 2027 renewal, which Elena Novak stated at £44k a year.

Usage: Active users were about 11 or 12 most months, down about 5 per cent on the quarter before. Elliot blamed a leaver and client workload. No upgrade or extra users were raised.

Support: On 27 May 2026 Emma Jagger asked how to build a custom dashboard by partner. First response took 404 minutes.

Support: On 2 Jun 2026 the call connector stopped syncing, and Olivia Grant found the sync service had restarted at 14:47. The read does not show the cause or the fix.

Support: On 4 Jun 2026 Emma reported very slow pages, first response at 179 minutes. The ticket took 18 days to close with no root cause shown.

Support: On 9 Jun 2026 Emma flagged missing June billing records. First response took 793 minutes, and the cause was a filter hiding the records.

Support: On 19 Jun 2026 Mark Ellwood reported June invoices missing from the brain. The ticket was marked solved on 15 Jul 2026 with no resolution shown.

Other: A marketing webinar invitation to the chief executive on 10 May 2026 drew no response.

Open at the end: Slow-page cause, the call sync root cause and the missing invoices were not confirmed as resolved.

Support: On 6 Jan 2026 two team members lost access after an IT reorganisation, resolved in 14 days. On 8 Jan 2026 Mark Ellwood's read-only permission changes did not take effect, resolved in 7 days.

Freshness: On 16 Jan 2026 Elliot Kirkby reported the last refresh was 2 days old. First response took 462 minutes and the ticket closed in 5 days.

Renewal: On the 23 Feb 2026 call, Emma Croft and Toby Mellor were positive. Tom Ashdown quoted £44k for 1 Apr 2026 to 31 Mar 2027, unchanged; Emma said they do not use all 40 seats and have needed no more than two connectors.

Support: On 23 Feb 2026 Elliot asked about dashboard date filters, a sign of active building. On 4 Mar 2026 Emma Jagger could not save queries; Olivia Grant found a bug and escalated to Ewan Pryce, with no customer confirmation of the fix.

Renewal: On 12 Mar 2026 Emma Croft asked whether the price matched the first year. Tom answered £44k and sent the order form; on 18 Mar 2026 Rachel Dunmore issued INV-014-0003 for £44k net, due 17 Apr 2026.

News: The 24 Mar 2026 Legal Practice Review item reported growing adoption without figures.

Open at the end: No signed order form is shown. The duplicate partner records ticket of 25 Mar 2026 was still open, and the Salesforce sync lag of 5 Mar 2026 was resolved.

Support: On 14 Oct 2025 Mark Ellwood reported client records drifting from the source CRM. Bethan Lister asked for examples, first response took 167 minutes, and the ticket was resolved in 13 days.

Support: On 6 Nov 2025 searches slowed because the nightly refresh had run late the previous day. Olivia Grant investigated, first response was 60 minutes, and Elliot Kirkby confirmed speed was back to normal by the next day.

Support: On 17 Dec 2025 Elliot asked how to build custom reports. Olivia showed him the dashboards builder, first response took 810 minutes on a low priority ticket, and it was resolved in 21 days.

Renewal: On 31 Dec 2025 Esther Quaye flagged quieter usage ahead of the contract ending on 31 Mar 2026. Emma Croft replied that the firm has changed structure and asked for the renewal terms.

People: Emma did not commit to renewing and did not explain the structural changes. The read treats her reply as brief and guarded.

Open at the end: Esther is to hold a January call, find out what changed and send the terms. The evidence does not show whether the call took place, and seat count and tier may need revisiting.

Support: On 1 Aug 2025 the business development team asked how to view calls linked to client matters. Bethan Lister confirmed it was possible, first response took 157 minutes, and the ticket was resolved in 6 days.

Support: On 10 Sep 2025 Elliot Kirkby reported exact duplicate client matter records. Olivia Grant asked for matter names to check connector logs, first response took 279 minutes, and it was resolved in 7 days. The read flags a risk of lost confidence in data accuracy.

People: On 22 Sep 2025 Esther Quaye proposed a check-in call and Elliot agreed to the following Tuesday within about an hour. He raised no concerns.

Check-in: On 29 Sep 2025 Esther held a 30-minute call with Elliot, Operations Director. He was pleased, reported clean data and said people from other parts of the firm are asking for access.

Commercial: Marlstone Legal is on Growth with 40 users and eight connectors. Elliot said 40 users is enough for now and another connector is not urgent. An early February QBR was agreed ahead of a renewal about six months away.

Open at the end: Esther is to book the QBR and send Elliot the call summary. Use is mostly searches and no dashboards are built. The duplicate records root cause fix (review of connector sync logic) is listed as a next step in the ticket read.

Billing: invoice INV-014-0002 for the first-year Growth subscription was sent on 1 Apr 2025, net £40k with VAT £7,920, due 1 May 2025. The evidence does not show payment.

Kickoff: on 3 Apr 2025 Laura Penhaligon and Esther Quaye agreed four connectors (Salesforce, Gong, Outlook, Xero) against an eight-connector limit and 40 soft licensed users. Elliot Kirkby asked about adding systems later.

Support: two onboarding tickets. Emma Jagger resolved a CRM field mapping question herself on 4 Apr 2025. A new user login ticket from 14 Apr 2025 had a first response of 309 minutes and resolved in 9 days.

Connectors: Emma agreed on 22 Apr 2025 to start with CRM and calls. CRM went live the day before the 2 May 2025 call, and calls went live the week before the 22 May 2025 call, with Emma's spot checks finding no duplicates or gaps.

Adoption: on 2 May 2025 Elliot asked what the brain should be used for. On 27 May 2025 Mark Ellwood was unsure at first and clearer by the end of training. Elliot asked about a client report card dashboard on 9 Apr 2025, which Laura placed in Growth.

News: on 13 Jun 2025 the Commercial Law Gazette reported the firm expanding business-development operations and taking the capability to more internal teams.

Open at the end: the value check-in with Elliot was planned but not shown as held. Emma is the only named admin. No price, renewal or rival talk appears.

Discovery: On 8 Jan 2025 Emma Croft and Elliot Kirkby described client data split across four or five systems. Tom Ashdown positioned Growth at around £52k for the first year, a verbal estimate.

Demo: Hannah Lowe demoed Growth on 22 Jan 2025 and Elliot said "That's exactly what we need." He chose three of eight connectors to start. The proposal was an open item.

Pricing: On 10 Feb 2025 Emma and Elliot probed the £52k total and year-two price. Tom said the £40k subscription is discounted for the first year and returns to list at renewal.

Negotiation: On 27 Feb 2025 Emma agreed to proceed. Owen Tallis said renewal would be on the standard list of £44k after a fifteen percent first-term discount.

Service credit: Owen described a five percent credit for a miss on either uptime or nightly refresh. Growth's standard credit covers availability only.

Paperwork: Tom sent the order form on 12 Mar 2025 and Emma said she would sign by end of week. Rachel Dunmore sent invoice INV-014-0001 on 17 Mar 2025 and asked Toby Mellor for a PO number.

Open at the end: The signed order form is not in the reads. The PO number, payment, the renewal price expectation and the credit wording remain unconfirmed.

One read: this period holds a single email thread, dated 31 Oct 2023, and nothing else.

Invitation: Nell Ashcombe invited Toby Mellor to an online webinar on Thursday 16 November 2023 for finance and operations teams, on joining up data across systems.

Customer view: there is no customer response in the thread, and the read records sentiment as neutral and the voice as unknown.

Open at the end: nothing is recorded as open. No risks, opportunities or next steps were identified, and the evidence does not show whether Toby attended.