As Lee Bachlet (SVP of Growth & Innovation) puts it, CherryRoad Media’s “secret sauce” is that they “marry two worlds”: a local-scale media company backed by a long-established technology parent with deep experience in managed business and shared services. In practice, that lets CherryRoad keep local journalism local, while building centralized systems that make the operation more adaptable and efficient.
Bachlet describes his role as being about identity and direction: “I’m trying to help us figure out who we are as a company and where we’re headed.” As CherryRoad scaled in the last couple years to more than 100 papers across 18 states, the team aligned on a clear operating philosophy: focus internal resources on what CherryRoad does best, and partner where specialists can run a function more efficiently.
“We want to be the most efficient newspaper operation out there,” Bachlet said. “We look for those pieces we think we do well, and we look at those pieces where we think other people do better than us, and then we find partners in that space.”
For CherryRoad, legal notices—especially affidavits across multiple states—became the clearest example of where a specialist partner could outperform an in-house process.
The Problem
CherryRoad had built a centralized legal team, but affidavit production remained a persistent bottleneck.
“Affidavits were always a challenge for us,” Bachlet said. “To be honest, we just weren’t handling them that well.” More specifically, he described the day-to-day friction as “just getting affidavits produced in a timely manner, getting them out to people.”
As CherryRoad expanded into more states and markets, affidavit requirements multiplied—each jurisdiction with its own rules, formats, and timelines—creating more room for missed steps, compliance risk, and time-consuming workarounds for the internal team.
That operational drag created direct financial pressure:
Legal notice revenue could not be recognized quickly without completed affidavits
Delays in affidavit turnaround slowed invoicing and payment collection
Inconsistent execution risked customer experience and service reliability
As Bachlet put it: “Legals don’t get paid until an affidavit is produced.” And when affidavits were delayed—or missed entirely—“customers weren’t getting the service they need,” tightening the cash cycle and raising stakes across the operation.
The Solution
The Impact
By using Column’s order management service, CherryRoad outsourced legal and affidavit workflows for roughly 100 newspapers to Column and redeployed its internal legal team into higher-priority growth work.
The economics were straightforward: “In the end, it didn’t cost us anything,” Bachlet said. “Column’s model allowed us to do this at zero cost.”
1) Faster affidavits strengthened cash flow
Because affidavits unlock payment, improving turnaround time directly improved CherryRoad’s cash cycle.
“Affidavits are going out in a much more timely manner, which means payments are coming in a much more timely manner,” Bachlet said. “In the end, cash flow is a critical part of any business.”
Just as important, the process became more reliable: “Before, there were times when affidavits were getting missed and customers weren’t getting the service they need. We don’t have that problem anymore.”
2) Reallocated talent powered new revenue channels
Outsourcing legals freed up experienced staff that CherryRoad could immediately redirect into its biggest growth engine: shared services.
“Our growth today is in working with other companies, doing the kind of outsourcing work that we’re doing with Column,” Bachlet said—across accounts receivable, accounts payable, finance, circulation, customer service, and ad coordination.
“That’s our biggest new revenue channel, that shared services work.”
And because the team was reallocated—not reduced—CherryRoad avoided adding cost as the business expanded: “If we hadn’t done this, we would have had to go out and hire more people… and increase our expense. Column allowed us not to do that.”
3) A partnership they’re willing to stand behind
Today, Bachlet has become one of the most credible advocates for what Column’s order management model can unlock for publishers—because he and his team have lived the operational tradeoffs and made it work at scale.
“At this point, our organizations are working pretty closely together,” he said. “We believe in Column’s solution.”
And he doesn’t keep that conviction internal.
Bachlet now shares the playbook openly with peers across the industry: “We tell people today in the industry that this was the right decision for us, and it could be the right decision for them.”
Bottom Line
For CherryRoad, outsourcing legals became a strategic lever: shifting a complex, high-risk workflow to specialists so internal teams could stay focused on the company’s next phase of growth.
This move:
- Improved affidavit reliability and speed
- Strengthened cash flow through faster payment cycles
- Freed internal talent for higher-value growth work
- Supported expansion of new shared-services revenue channels
And just as importantly, it reinforced trust.
“Today, Column is as important a partner of ours as we have,” Bachlet said. “Column’s team is incredibly responsive and on the ball. We believe what we’re doing makes sense. And we’re happy that we made this choice.”