Nathan Hayes, head of infrastructure and technology, outlines the latest ground-breaking IT projects at Osborne Clarke, where the electronic-matter file and business process management are driving operational agility and innovation.

Nathan Hayes’ role at Osborne Clarke is unusual for a law firm: as head of infrastructure and technology, his responsibilities cover the physical and virtual environment in which the firm’s lawyers operate, including buildings, facilities and IT. It was not always thus. Hayes joined the firm ten years ago as network manager and took on his current position three years ago. ‘There is a clear business case for combining the two head roles,’ he observes. ‘Both functions involve similar processes at least in terms of procurement, contract management, service delivery, maintenance and helpdesk provision. It became apparent that there was a lot of value to be gained by sharing skills and developing synergy in terms of integrating the two elements of the head roles. For instance, we now operate a single helpdesk for both functions. We are also very selective about the investments we make at any one time in both areas, focusing on productivity, process and value.’

Osborne Clarke is currently focusing on three key infrastructure projects: file and document management, business process management (BPM) and an intranet redevelopment project that is aimed primarily at knowledge navigation and dissemination. The work is very much a combined effort with many people contributing to each project from functions as diverse as quality and risk, knowledge and development as well as infrastructure and technology all sponsored by senior management and, specifically, chief operating officer, Chris Bull.

Managing the document life cycle

Osborne Clarke is currently involved in a wholesale transformation of its file and document management systems. ‘When we embarked on this project, we didn’t think that we were pushing the boundaries,’ says Hayes. ‘We’d read about various firms moving to electronic files, but as the project progressed, we realised that few were addressing the entire document life cycle. For example, some firms are introducing imaging or document management systems without addressing records management, archiving and most importantly, document destruction – in electronic and hard copy. So we decided to review the entire document life cycle from inception to destruction in all its forms. For example, document inception needed to include data created internally and externally and received electronically or via hard copy. Destruction is a big issue as currently, most firms seem to be keeping all matter-related hard copy for a minimum period measured in years, even if it has been scanned. We aim to establish a more robust destruction policy for electronic and hard copy.’

Given that the electronic file represents a record of the content of a matter, the objective of the project was to improve the efficiency of the entire process. To that end, the project team are running a number of streams aimed at addressing the various components of the document life cycle. ‘They’re all running in parallel where possible to maintain a reasonable project timeline,’ says Hayes. ‘The idea is that by the end of the project, which we expect to complete by Q2 next year, we will have completely reengineered the entire process firm wide.’

‘The project includes what we consider to be imaging – scanning, copying and printing – as we’ve replaced the entire imaging fleet across all our offices with multifunctional device (MFDs) and eCopy stations,’ he adds.

Rules of engagement

Hayes underlines that the most important consideration was the last 20% of the process – the user interface. ‘We have therefore combined automating systems and processes with generating best practice by determining rules of engagement that we all adhere to,’ he says. ‘In effect, we are encouraging, cajoling, training our people to operate according to a predetermined set of guidelines, but you have to codify that and communicate it effectively across the firm.’

Training is crucial to make sure everyone understands the processes they have to follow. Following in-depth consultation with various practice groups, training was divided into different elements and structured according to people’s role types. For example PAs receive different training from fee-earners. ‘Our approach has developed as a result of piloting various processes,’ explains Hayes. ‘It is quite an evolutionary process and we haven’t reached a conclusion on best practice for every process. Although we have covered a lot, we still need to work on certain elements, particularly around destruction and how long we are required to keep documents and data.’

Automatic filing with E-mail Assist

Although the firm had upgraded to the latest version of WorkSite, this did not include an automatic mechanism for filing e-mails, although it was possible to drop correspondence into a particular matter file.

The project team decided to make the system as user friendly as possible and automatic, or at least semi-automatic; e-mail filing was the obvious solution. They therefore deployed E-mail Assist from Phoenix, now an integral part of Interwoven’s offering, which interfaces with WorkSite. Hayes explains how it works. ‘When you send an e-mail, you can opt or force your people to click “Send and File” when sending an e-mail. A dialogue box then appears asking you to select a workspace. Everything filed in that workspace inherits information defined by the workspace – the metadata – in terms of the client, the matter number and so forth. The subject line in the e-mail becomes the description of the e-mail that goes into the matter workspace. So all our people have to do when you press send and file is select a workspace and press file. It’s just two extra clicks, so people are prepared to do it, especially when the benefits are explained to them. From then on, any e-mail that’s part of that conversation by default – and you can change the default arrangement – will automatically file itself in that matter workspace.So all our people need do is select the initial filing location and from then on all e-mails in the conversation get filed automatically.’

The process saves time and reduces duplication within the document management system. If someone sends an e-mail to ten people within the business on a particular matter, that email will be filed in the matter workspace. When the e-mail reaches the in-box of each recipient it is flagged using a green flag in Outlook 2003 or later, indicating that it has already been filed, so everyone else knows they need not do anything with the e-mail once read or actioned, except delete it.

E-mails that cover several matters can be copied and filed in the relevant workspaces. If an e-mail header is wrong, or the topic changes half way through the correspondence, it is also possible to override the default setting and file manually. If something is filed in the wrong matter workspace, Interwoven provides a powerful search engine, which they’re just in the process of upgrading, so information can generally be located using a free text search and find the information anyway. ‘Matter workspaces are all about being able to browse to a set of information that you’re after,’ says Hayes. ‘The free text search and all the other metadata search parameters make it very easy to find a document or e-mail, even if it has been misfiled.’

As Osborne Clarke was an early adopter of E-mail Assist, there were some initial issues to resolve. However, the application has since been purchased and further developed by Interwoven. The automated filing system already interfaces with BlackBerry and the project team are currently working with Interwoven and Phoenix on enabling e-mails to be effectively filed from people’s BlackBerry devices using Interwoven’s Mobility Server.

Voicemail and faxes can also be filed as all the firm’s communication systems are integrated into Outlook. ‘We were early adopters of unified messaging, which now allows users to profile voicemails and faxes into workspaces from their inbox. So if someone leaves you a voice message relating to a matter, you can file it in the relevant workspace,’ adds Hayes.

Retention, archiving and destruction The project team are also developing best practice around retention, archiving and destruction. ‘Our objective is to be in a position where we can advise our people that if they receive a matter-related document, they can scan it into the workspace and under certain conditions, which we still have to finalise, the original document can be destroyed immediately.’

Although many firms are moving to electronic-matter files, it would seem they tend to retain the hard copy for a period measured in years. Osborne Clarke’s strategy is based on challenging the concept that hard copy represents a genuinely secure archive. ‘Our electronic systems are fully resilient and have multiple, multi-stage back ups. So why do we need to retain hard copy? Given events such as the Iron Mountain fire in London, it’s clear that hard copy isn’t more secure. It’s easily lost and damaged, for a start,’ he argues.

Equally important are the potential cost savings of moving to electronic archiving. ‘We spend in excess of £250,000 a year on archiving and storage. If we can reduce that figure, the firm will gain significant savings – in addition to the value derived from ease of access to electronic information,’ he adds. Remote and mobile access is increasingly important to the business, as lawyers regularly move between the firm’s offices. One of the firm’s property partners recently confirmed this when he told Hayes that it was difficult for their Bristol-based lawyers to work out of the firm’s Reading office as they did not have access to all their files. Hayes acknowledges that it will take time to convert to electronic filing. ‘Although we’re not converting all our existing files into electronic format, all new files are opened as electronic files, using the automated system, so eventually the entire filing system will be electronic,’ he says. ‘Another advantage is that electronic files are much easier to maintain than physical filing systems, as has been confirmed by feedback from lawyers at all levels in the firm. Furthermore, people have acknowledged the advantages in terms of knowledge sharing. Where confidentiality issues are involved it is simply a matter of using the functionality provided by Interwoven.’

The destruction project goes live in November. ‘Our aim is that some matter-related documents that have been scanned into WorkSite will have been destroyed or at least sent for confidential destruction within a reasonable period of time,’ explains Hayes. The system is supported by multiple layers of back up. ‘We back up to disk locally and remotely – in separate locations, and to tape. The two live replication locations are in London and Bristol, so we’d have to lose the entire UK before we would have to resort to archive tape restores – and then, may I suggest, we’d have more important things to worry about?’ The idea is ultimately to significantly reduce the size of the paper. Hayes explains that this requires further underlying technologies. ‘We’re currently implementing technologies to reduce the replication window by introducing a higher tolerance and higher capacity multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) wide area network, which will extend across all offices globally.

At the moment it is limited to the UK, but the plan is to extend it to Germany. That will allow us to host the German services from the UK, so we can finally move to our strategic aim of the dual data centre operating model. At the moment we operate two primary data centres and two smaller ones, one in the US and one in Germany.’ He adds that this requires a lot of technical project work, which whilst not delivering direct value to the business in terms of significant changes to working practices, is supporting the whole process.’

Scanning hard copy

Elevating the electronic file to the primary record for each matter required a straightforward and user-friendly mechanism for introducing hard copy documents into WorkSite: previously these had to be scanned at a digital sender, e-mailed to a PC and only then introduced into the electronic file. Facilitating and speeding up this process required further investment in new technology. Hayes outlines the solution. ‘Infotec, a print and document services provider, supplied a scanning solution with direct integration to our document management system, thereby simplifying the entire document capture process. Infotec supplied high specification MFDs for scanning, printing, copying and faxing. The MFDs are configured with eCopy scan stations, which automate the archive process and provide integration with the firm’s centralised fax system, RightFax.’ Hayes deliberately selected the non-embedded version of eCopy, which has an attached PC with a relatively large touch screen and keyboard on an arm which sits next to the device. ‘This makes it as easy as possible to log in and complete the process,’ he explains. ‘If our people wish to scan in a document, all they need do is go to the device, log in using their active directory log in, select the relevant workspace and hit scan. They just need to give the document a title, but that’s all the typing they have to do.’

The project team worked on the interface between eCopy and WorkSite to develop a solution that was tailored to the way people at Osborne Clarke would use eCopy, Interwoven and the MFD devices. ‘As a result we now have what we consider to be a very good solution and we’re finding that people are quite comfortable introducing hard copy into the electronic file using these technologies,’ says Hayes.

Although the system was user friendly, scanning large volumes would still represent a time-consuming exercise for fee-earners and PAs. So Hayes decided to introduce a new service provided by the firm’s document production teams. ‘In effect, it was the reverse of what they were doing previously, namely document production,’ he says. ‘We introduced a centralised scanning service into each of the UK offices which includes batch scanning. People can simply deliver their documents to the document production team and they will scan them in. When the documents have been scanned, they are notified by e-mail that they can then access them in the relevant workspace.’

As the document destruction policy has not yet been finalised, the document production team return the original documents via the internal post. Hayes plans that eventually documents, which can be destroyed, will be destroyed by the document production team – only when instructed to do so. That would offer a host of additional savings in terms of internal post and movement of documents as well as on-site and off-site storage.

The final hurdle: litigation and the electronic file

A significant barrier to moving entirely to electronic files involves matters going to litigation. Hayes explains the dilemma. ‘There are a number of different viewpoints as to what constitutes a record. If a hard copy document is introduced into an electronic matter file, it effectively exists in two forms. Although the content is identical at that point, litigators argue that from a legal perspective it continues to operate as a hard copy document so that there are then two records: electronic and hard copy. There currently seems to be no mechanism for dispensing with the hard copy record and stating that the electronic copy is a true and accurate record of what the hard copy was at a particular moment in time, which would allow the hard copy to be destroyed and for the electronic copy to continue as the sole record.

Litigators argue that if a matter goes to litigation, the court will consider the two documents as two separate records.’ He adds that this applies to all documents, as a litigator would argue that any matter within any practice area may end up in litigation, when the documents would be treated in this way. The project team is currently working on resolving this issue, but Hayes acknowledges that there may be a delay to enable the industry to catch up with advances in technology. A possible solution may be to introduce an element of digital rights management whereby a personal security certificate is issued to register the precise point in time when a document changed from hard copy to electronic copy.

The business drivers for BPM

According to Hayes, applying BPM to law firm functions is very interesting from an operational perspective. ‘Essentially we are re-engineering the way we do law,’ he says. In his recent presentation at the Legal IT Forum, Hayes set out the business drivers for applying BPM to law firm functions. These are divided into three categories: risk management and compliance, productivity, and IT objectives.

Risk management and compliance

• Minimising risk to the client and the firm.
• Better targeted and more timely reporting.
• Increasing the potential number of billable hours byreducing the administrative burden on lawyers.
• More effective audit trails.
• File opening simply no longer ‘fit for purpose’ or commercially savvy.
• More effective components specifically needed for: client, matter and related party identification; conflicts; money laundering; matter number creation/notification; and authorisation.

Productivity

A working practice review recognised that their people operated in three distinct ways:they undertake specific tasks (activity); they perform research (content); or they manage a collection of activities which take place over a period of time (process). Although the firm’s IT applications focused on helping people undertake specific tasks and collect content, they did not manage process. Furthermore, these applications did not operate efficiently in a way which reflected individuals’ different roles and work contexts.

IT objectives

• Deliver a one-firm, consistent approach (primarily between different locations).
• Deliver a fully automated, second-phase work acceptance (client and matter inception) system and reduce the amount of time spent by people on administrative tasks through further process automation.
• Achieve a rapid return on investment through productivity enhancements resulting from IT-related investments in new equipment and systems.

Having identified the business case, the project team decided to focus on specific elements of the business. As Hayes explains, the rationale behind this decision was the need to gain the buy-in of the firm’s lawyers. ‘We had to demonstrate to our lawyers that certain elements of their role could be improved by clearly defined, automated activities,’ he says. This was achieved by adopting a two-pronged approach: education and communication; and piloting the idea by selecting specific processes to automate and codify.

The pilot project covered the work acceptance process, automating client and matter inception. ‘It was critical to recognise that work acceptance extended beyond simply opening a new file,’ says Hayes. ‘There’s much more involved in terms of conflict checking, knowing the clients and the type of business they operate. All that needed to be written into the process. So that is what we did. We engaged the business in terms of codifying a much wider extended process of taking on work and automated it using our own in-house system.’

Automating work acceptance

Hayes explains the work acceptance process. ‘When one of our people wishes to take on a new matter or a new client, they instigate the process via the intranet. They are then presented with essentially a wizard – a series of screens that take them through the process. Depending on the information they provide, it instigates various activities which interface with different applications (see Figure 1). For example, it automatically requests a conflict check in actioned for a proposed client. It then awaits confirmation when that has been done, only then enabling the process to move on to the next stage.’

A key benefit of automation is that it generates an audit trail. This means that everyone involved in a matter can check which stages of the process have been completed and by whom. ‘For example if a matter needs urgent attention, but is delayed at the conflict check stage, the lawyer can contact the person responsible for undertaking the check,’ says Hayes. ‘Not only is it much more transparent, but it also speeds up the work acceptance process because as soon as a matter is ready to move on to the next stage, the system notifies the person responsible so that they can start work on it immediately – and if they don’t, it issues a reminder.’

According to Hayes, the introduction of automated work acceptance received mixed reactions from the lawyers. ‘They were delighted with the fact that the whole process end to end was much quicker and more transparent, but they very much disliked the fact that they couldn’t complete opening a matter without providing all of the relevant information. They felt that this was adding more administration even though the overall process was quicker and more consistent,’ he observes.

‘Management benefited because the process was clear, transparent and enabled us to implement our strategy in practical terms by ensuring that all the work we took on supported our business objectives.’

Hayes explains that implementation is a key challenge as in order to deliver against the firm’s overall strategy, technology needs to work with third parties. ‘IT works with our legal partners, our finance teams, our HR teams, our marketing teams, enabling us to develop processes that maximise business value and support our strategic priorities.’

Hayes summarises the tangible benefits of the implementation of the first phase of BPM around client and matter inception as:

• removal of delays exposed to clients due to resource bottlenecks;
• timely intervention resulting from process transparency leading to fewer missed opportunities/mistakes;
• regulatory compliance enforced;
• faster turn-around times on matter creation;
• more appropriate take up of clients and work in relation to firm strategy; and
• more consistent working practices.

These benefits, along with a marked reduction in bureaucracy and administration, led people to ask for more process automation.

Rolling out BPM

Having decided to roll out process automation further, the next step was to utilise a more robust BPM solution and therefore they needed to choose a BPM development partner. Osborne Clarke has developed a well-defined procurement process, which includes activities ranging from invitations to tender followed through to presentations from a short list of providers. Metastorm BPM was eventually selected for reasons that included the following:

• Metastorm is a mature business with legal market experience.
• The BPM product offers a broad set of application features.
• ‘POD’ offering provides simple integration with popular practice management, client relationship management and document management systems.
• It has established strong relationships with Microsoft and other third parties (Interwoven, Elite, etc).
• It has good mobile support (SWiFT).
• It has a modelling and simulation tool option.

Metastorm BPM is a stand-alone system, accessed via a webbased interface. ‘Our intranet has a crucial role to play in process automation,’ explains Hayes. ‘If people can’t find the processes, they simply won’t use them. Ease of use is equally critical. The intranet provides the mechanism for navigating quickly to the required process.’ He adds that some processes – for example, work acceptance – are applied on a daily basis.

Others, however, are used irregularly, so it is important to provide a quick-and-easy mechanism to find and apply the right one. ‘People don’t need to understand the technology; they just want to achieve an end and achieve it quickly. So instigating a process via the intranet invokes the Metastorm system, which then takes you through it step by step.’ (See Figure 2) This is now being rolled out to other legal, business and back-office processes, with the aim of increasing efficiency, saving time and minimising risk. So far, the main achievements of the second phase of the BPM project are:

• establishing an enterprise, scalable BPM application, framework and organisational schema;
• mapping out a number of processes, the first of which (complaints and claims handling) has been completed and financial process will follow shortly; and
• developing a culture that acknowledges process automation as the key to increased efficiency and profitability.

Conclusion

Hayes emphasises the importance of adopting a practical approach that takes into account people’s different levels of IT competence, although to some extent this can be addressed through training, which he describes as a mechanism for bridging the gap between people and technology. ‘It’s crucial to concentrate on making the technology as accessible as possible.’ Although Osborne Clarke is clearly ahead of the game in terms of legal technology, Hayes highlights the value of BPM in terms of helping people work more efficiently without requiring them to develop technical expertise. ‘Although it’s helpful that lawyers are more tech savvy than they used to be, it’s important not to rely on it,’ he says. ‘Otherwise, you’re loading people with technology responsibilities that will impact on their productivity.

We generate revenues from our lawyers being good lawyers not from them being good technologists.’ Targeted investment is another critical success factor. ‘We spend less than 4% of our revenue on IT and some years it’s been closer to 3%. By targeting our IT investment, we can do some quite innovative work of quite significant benefit to our business without spending an inordinate amount of money. I like to think that we’re providing a better than average service for a lower than average cost and as long as we achieve those two things, we’re doing a good job.’

Nathan Hayes has been described as ‘the sharpestdressed man in legal IT’. The initiatives featured in this case study show that the team at Osborne Clarke are also sharply focused on ensuring that their systems and processes are consistently smart, well coordinated, up to date and add significant business value.