Case study
How a small CPA firm scaled advisory and research with CoCounsel, Ready to Advise, and Protection Plus
With trusted, citation‑backed AI and wraparound protection built into everyday workflows, the firm freed partners from bottlenecks, empowered junior staff, and reassured clients.
Company overview
Based in Jacksonville, Florida, The Forde Firm, Inc. is a CPA firm providing tax, audit, bookkeeping, and advisory services to businesses and nonprofits. Founded and led by Linda R. Forde, CPA, the firm serves clients across Northeast Florida and beyond, combining technical depth with a service-led approach.
Introduction
Facing mounting client demand and an industry‑wide talent squeeze, The Forde Firm needed to scale high‑value advisory and research without sacrificing quality or client trust. The firm adopted a connected approach across Thomson Reuters CoCounsel, Ready to Advise, and Protection Plus to standardize research, streamline advisory proposals, and provide post‑filing protection—embedding trust at every layer: institutional trust in Thomson Reuters content and partnerships, output trust through citations and defensible memos, and adoption trust via firmwide access and seamless workflows. With CoCounsel rolled out to every employee, Ready to Advise guiding consistent strategy reviews, and Protection Plus integrated into UltraTax for effortless notice handling, the firm moved faster, involved more staff earlier, and gave clients greater peace of mind from planning through post‑filing support.
$ Ready to Advise
“Paid for itself in the first couple of clients”
12 seats
Rolled out CoCounsel to all firm employees
12/10
Rating by the firm
“I was terrified about my staff using Chat GPT without any protections or any security protocols in place. So, we went with CoCounsel because of the limited source data that we could lock it down and use data from legitimate sources.”
Linda Forde
Managing Partner, The Forde Firm
The challenge
Like many growing firms, the team was constrained by partner bottlenecks and uneven staff experience. Advisory quality depended heavily on one leader's "35 years of experience," slowing proposals and limiting capacity. At the same time, staff were eager to use AI, but leadership needed a solution that preserved client trust and professional standards. As the managing partner put it, "AI is coming whether we like it or not. I was terrified about my staff using Chat GPT without any protections or any security protocols in place."
“Ready to Advise allows me to help my staff understand better the options that are available without having to have my 35 years of experience.”
Linda Forde
Managing Partner, The Forde Firm
The solution
The firm adopted three connected Thomson Reuters solutions to create a wraparound model from strategy to submission to support—anchored in the Three Layers of Trust. For research and knowledge capture, leadership "bought a seat for everyone in the firm" with CoCounsel, ensuring adoption trust through universal access and everyday usability. Output trust came from authoritative, citation‑backed results: "I can click on any conversation… and be able to confidently explain to my client why it matters, what code section it came from." For scalable advisory, Ready to Advise standardized intake and recommendations by uploading prior‑year returns "before we're even delivering a proposal," giving junior staff step‑by‑step guidance and clients a consistent, Thomson Reuters‑grounded experience—reinforcing institutional trust in the content behind each strategy. To protect clients after filing and keep staff on higher‑value work, the firm bundled Protection Plus directly within UltraTax, so notices could be routed immediately to specialists: "it makes it very easy for us to just send the information over to Protection Plus and say, hey, respond to this notice for us." The trust moment that unlocked the decision was clear: constrained sources, citations, and firm policies inside CoCounsel—combined with proven Thomson Reuters expertise in Ready to Advise and a seamless, UltraTax‑integrated path to Protection Plus—meant leadership could scale with guardrails and confidence.
The outcome
Capacity and confidence increased throughout the practice. Partners spend more time advising while staff "put information into Ready to Advise and have it be ready to go," accelerating proposals and client conversations. Research that once stalled delivery now produces documented, defensible memos clients appreciate: "I got an instant response in a memo that I could send directly to my client." On the back end, Protection Plus absorbed IRS notice work—whether "one or two" erroneous notices or routine correspondence—so the team stayed focused on planning and tax work: "they just do their stuff in the background and it's magical." Client acceptance validated the model when the firm bundled Protection Plus and doubled its pass‑through price in year one and has since included it in the engagement letter as part of standard service. Ready to Advise "paid for itself in the first couple of clients," and CoCounsel earned a "12 out of 10.”
At a glance
Industry
Accounting, Finance & Tax, Audit
HQ region
Jacksonville, Florida
Solutions
CoCounsel Tax, Audit, & Accounting
Ready to Advise
Protection Plus
Year founded
2018
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