BigHand moves business intelligence to Microsoft Fabric

BigHand said its Business Intelligence platform will shift to Microsoft Fabric, with existing BI 4.0 Cloud customers moving in September at no extra cost. The change is aimed at law firms that want to keep more of their analytics inside Microsoft while avoiding the time and expense of building legal financial intelligence from scratch.

Why it matters: - BigHand is trying to answer a familiar build-vs-buy question for law firms that want deeper control over their data. - The move could let firms use Microsoft Fabric while keeping BigHand’s legal financial logic, instead of recreating that intelligence themselves. - The shift may help firms analyze profitability, work in progress, realization, utilization, cost allocation and performance with less internal build effort.

What happened: - BigHand announced that its Business Intelligence solution is moving to Microsoft Fabric. - Existing BI 4.0 Cloud customers will transition in September at no additional cost. - The announcement was made in London on Aug. 21, 2026.

The details: - The new architecture combines BigHand’s legal-specific data model with more than 600 pre-built financial and operational measures. - Firms will be able to work inside the Microsoft data environment many already use and invest in. - BigHand said the approach gives law firms a ready-made foundation for business intelligence without requiring years of custom development. - On Fabric, firms can connect BigHand’s financial intelligence with data from CRM, HR, time recording, billing and matter management systems. - Firms can extend analytics through Microsoft tools already familiar to their teams. - Fabric’s alerting features can surface emerging performance issues without waiting for retrospective dashboard reviews.

Between the lines: - BigHand is leaning into a broader trend: legal tech vendors are being pushed to fit into existing enterprise data stacks rather than replace them. - The company is also positioning itself as more than a reporting layer by emphasizing earlier, more actionable intelligence. - Earlier this month, BigHand acquired Ayora, adding data enrichment technology and a conversational AI agent to its product set. - BigHand also released a Resource Management Summer Update this week that gives law firm leaders forward-looking visibility into lawyer capacity, matter performance and financial risk. - Brian Taaffe, BigHand’s senior director of platform and data strategy, said firms should not have to spend years recreating the intelligence needed to make their data useful.

What's next: - BigHand said firms can book a personalized demonstration to learn more about BigHand Business Intelligence. - The company said its focus is on helping firms spot risks, opportunities and performance signals earlier, before decisions are made. - BigHand plans to keep building tools that help firms structure, interrogate and act on complex data more quickly.

The bottom line: - BigHand is betting that law firms want Microsoft flexibility without sacrificing specialized legal financial intelligence. That pitch could resonate with firms that want faster deployment and less custom analytics work.