2021 eDiscovery Case Law Wrap-up
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Perkins Coie LLP Goes Live with ECFX Notice at Three More Offices as Part of National Rollout
Perkins Coie LLP has deployed ECFX Notice, the leading electronic court filing (ECF) notice solution, in their Chicago, Denver, and Boise offices, the latest in a nationwide rollout of the platform. The Seattle based international law firm with more than 1,200 lawyers provides a full array of corporate, commercial litigation, intellectual property and regulatory legal advice to a broad range of clients. The firm now uses ECFX Notice in ten of their offices, including Seattle, New York, Washington, DC, and Dallas.
ECFX Notice is a state-of-the-art SaaS solution that downloads the documents in court notices, distributes the notices and documents directly to the case team, and stores the documents in the appropriate matter or client workspace in any DMS or file system. This process greatly reduces the amount of time required to process court filings, as well as diminishing the associated risk of error from incorrectly filed notices – giving law firms more control over their documents.
“When I first started, I wanted to find a way to streamline the processing of ECFs and get our team out of having to download every notice,” explained Arthur Aguilar, National Docketing Manager at Perkins Coie. “When we expanded nationally and did a canvas of the team, each person was spending upwards of two and a half days per week just working in the DMS – downloading and putting in items, moving them around and renaming them. Now, no human being has to handle the system – ECFX is running in the background, and does it automatically.”
“I’ve always believed that taking mundane tasks and automating them is one of the best uses of technology,” commented Dan O’Day, ECFX Co-founder and CEO. “When you do things manually, it is costly – it takes time and it is difficult to have control, because you have to train every staff member to do things the same way, which increases risk.”
Perkins Coie plans to roll out ECFX Notice to their remaining seven US offices in the coming months. ECFX Notice has them covered because ECFX has taken the approach of partnering with their rapidly growing list of law firm clients to deliver integrations with the courts and third-party providers that matter most. Following this approach, ECFX has rapidly covered all the major markets including all federal courts and is now focusing on the smaller providers that are important to their clients.
ECFX
ECFX was founded by legal and technology experts with a single goal: to address unmet automation needs in the legal industry. It is committed to filling in the gaps in legal workflows with intelligently automated solutions, enabling firms to save time, gain control, mitigate risk, and improve visibility. Its premier product, ECFX Notice, automates the downloading, profiling, storing, and distribution of court documents in ECF notices for both State and Federal courts—saving your firm hundreds of hours a week to focus on the work your clients value.
ECFX Notice adds support for Wisconsin, Oregon, Nevada, Idaho and more in just 30 Days!
ECFX Notice, the leading electronic court filing (ECF) notice solution, has added support for five (5) new courts in the last thirty days, including state courts in Wisconsin, Oregon, Nevada, and Idaho, as well as a specialty court in Illinois.
“The ECFX Notice platform was designed to quickly and easily add new court notice providers according to the needs of our clients,” said Dan O’Day, ECFX Co-founder and CEO. “We add courts based on client demand and work closely with them to ensure 100% coverage for their incoming notices.”
ECFX Notice is a state-of-the-art SaaS solution that downloads the documents in court notices, distributes the notices and documents directly to the case team, and stores the documents in the appropriate matter or client workspace in any DMS or file system.
Instead of selecting only jurisdictions with a large volume of notices, ECFX has taken the approach of partnering with their rapidly growing list of law firm clients to deliver integrations with the courts and third-party providers that matter most. Following this approach, ECFX has rapidly covered all the major markets including all federal courts and is now focusing on the smaller providers that are important to their clients. This has resulted in nationwide court coverage including 27 different providers with new providers added regularly to meet current client demands.
“ECFX elevates our Firm’s efficiency in processing electronic court filings!” asserted Krystal Bigley, Firm Administrator at Allen Vellone Wolf Helfrich & Factor P.C. “In addition to covering all Federal and Colorado state courts, they added JAG and Denver County Court. So 100% of our notices are managed automatically with ECFX. We transitioned a full-time dedicated staff member away from manually pulling, saving, naming, and circulating pleadings through this automation, allowing our staff to focus on substantive legal assistance. ECFX does all of this automatically, including sending our clients an Allen Vellone Wolf Helfrich & Factor branded email at 6:00 PM daily when pleadings are received. Our stakeholders staff, attorneys, and clients are pleased, so am I.”
ECFX
ECFX was founded by legal and technology experts with a single goal: to address unmet automation needs in the legal industry. It is committed to filling in the gaps in legal workflows with intelligently automated solutions, enabling firms to save time, gain control, mitigate risk, and improve visibility. Its premier product, ECFX Notice, automates the complex process of electronic court filing (ECF) notice management— saving firms hundreds of hours a week to focus on the work their clients value. Visit www.goECFX.com for more information.
ECFX, the leading provider of electronic court filing (ECF) notice management solutions, and Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information, have joined forces to provide the legal industry’s first automated solution for downloading State and Federal ECF notice documents and saving them directly into Thomson Reuters HighQ or ProLaw®.
“The integration will give HighQ and ProLaw clients access to court documents within seconds of an ECF notice being received from State and Federal courts,” said Dan O’Day, ECFX Co-Founder and CEO. “Approximately 30 seconds after a notice arrives from the court, ECF Notice will profile and save documents into HighQ or ProLaw and deliver a customized email notification with PDF documents or links to the profiled documents.” Additionally, the integration will simplify linking court documents to the Westlaw Legal Calendaring Rules docket within ProLaw matters.
ECFX Notice is a state-of-the-art SaaS solution that connects the court notices to the appropriate matter or client workspace in HighQ and ProLaw. It will also store all ECF notices and documents in the cloud as part of its service.
The Thomson Reuters Legal Professionals Partner Program is designed to provide clients with state-of-the-art innovation to overcome unique challenges in the business and practice of law. Through the program, the integration between ECFX, HighQ, and ProLaw will eliminate the time-consuming task of manually profiling ECF notice documents. Litigation firms often process hundreds or thousands of court documents per week. On average, the manual process of downloading, profiling, storing, and distributing notices and documents takes 10-20 minutes per notice. ECFX Notice handles the entire process automatically, freeing up time for legal staff to utilize their knowledge and expertise to do work the firm’s clients value.
“We are excited to partner with Thomson Reuters market-leading products to strengthen our common commitment to improve the lives of our mutual customers,” said Dan O’Day.
ECFX
ECFX was founded by attorneys and technology experts with a single goal: to address unmet automation needs in the legal industry. We are committed to filling in the gaps in legal workflows with intelligently automated solutions that enable firms to save time, gain control, mitigate risk and improve visibility. Our premier product, ECFX Notice, automates the complex process of electronic court filing notice management—saving firms hundreds of hours a week to focus on the work their clients value. Visit www.goECFX.com for more information.
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters is a leading provider of business information services. Our products include highly specialized information-enabled software and tools for legal, tax, accounting and compliance professionals combined with the world’s most global news service – Reuters. For more information on Thomson Reuters, visit tr.com and for the latest world news, reuters.com.
ECFX Notice, goes live at Schiff Hardin LLP automating court notice management. “This is a game changer,” says Schiff Hardin partner.
VENICE, Calif. – July 1, 2020 – ECFX, a company providing Intelligent Automation for law firms, announced today that Schiff Hardin LLP has successfully transitioned to live operations on ECFX Notice. ECFX Notice is now managing the court notice process for a variety of Schiff Hardin’s cases by performing in seconds the following seven-step workflow process: • Connects each case to an internal client and matter number • Downloads each document associated with the notice • Profiles each document to the firm’s document management system • Determines the relevant parties to notify based on information in the financial management system and case management • Distributes a consistently formatted notice and associated documents to the correct parties. • Updates the docketing staff • Provides cost load files for potential billing
A national firm with more than 250 lawyers practicing out of Ann Arbor, Chicago, Lake Forest, New York, Newport Beach, San Francisco and Washington, DC, Schiff Hardin serves its clients in a variety of practice areas. In alignment with its growth strategy and goal of using technology to improve the client experience and drive efficiencies, Schiff Hardin partnered with ECFX to reduce risk and streamline the court notice process.
The firm praised the straightforward and highly attentive implementation process as well as the immediate efficiencies ECFX Notice provides. Michael King, Schiff Hardin’s Director of Loss Prevention and Office Support Services said, “We are always looking to use the right resource and the right expertise on internal and client facing issues. With that as a guiding principle, we wanted to use technology more efficiently where we were using highly skilled, highly paid individuals to do a lot of data entry. ECFX Notice provided us that opportunity.”
The firm practices in many federal and state jurisdictions and is looking to ECFX to help manage the challenges arising from the differences between court systems, including different formats, login credentials, notice content and court nuances. “This is a game changer for those that practice in a bunch of jurisdictions,” were the words of one Schiff Hardin partner. “ECFX eliminates the need for cross training for court notices in the different jurisdictions,” added King.
The solution also provides a dashboard of customizable analytics, allowing legal professionals to gain visibility into notice management, review progress and manage staff resources as needed. “ECFX allows our attorneys to focus on what is important to our clients vs time consuming data entry,” said King.
“Schiff Hardin was the perfect partner for ECFX in developing a solution that intelligently automates manual processes surrounding electronic court filling,” said Dan ODay, a co-founder & CEO of ECFX. “The firm’s commitment to making processes more efficient for its clients and their incredibly talented and committed staff was a solid foundation for us to deliver an innovative and game changing product like ECFX Notice.”
About ECFX
ECFX, founded by legal technology industry veterans Dan O’Day, Nelson Quintero and Bill Burch, provides Intelligent Automation to help law firms and legal organizations address common, yet often undiagnosed, process challenges. Its premier product ECFX Notice streamlines the complex process of electronic court notice management, saving time, reducing costs and mitigating risk for law firms. Visit www.goECFX.com for more information. In 2020, ECFX Notice was a finalist in both the ABA TECHSHOW Startup Alley and the LegalWeek Innovation Competition!
About Schiff Hardin
Schiff Hardin LLP is a general practice law firm representing clients across the United States and around the world. We have offices located in Ann Arbor, Chicago, Lake Forest, New York, Newport Beach, San Francisco, and Washington. Our attorneys are strong advocates and trusted advisers — roles that contribute to many lasting client relationships.
Click here for a video. Learn more at www.filevine.com.
Filevine, the Legal Work Platform, is pleased to announce that its security practices meet Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type II standards based on an independent audit conducted by Marcum, LLP, an American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) auditing firm.
SOC 2 reports are industry recognized, independent audits which provide assurance about the design and effectiveness of controls in place at a service organization, demonstrating the company’s ability to adhere to critical security practices. The rigorous audit included five security domains: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. Additionally, Marcum reported that Filevine met the safeguard requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH), security standards relevant to personal health information.
This achievement validates dedicated security efforts made by Filevine over multiple years. In November 2019, Dean Sapp became Filevine’s Vice President of Information Security, bringing 20 years of experience in security and legal technology to the company.
“Filevine has made a concerted effort to prioritize information security, data privacy and compliance initiatives across our product portfolio. Protecting our customers and their data is a top priority. We understand how critical information security is to our customers. Our goal is to never let them down. We have built a defense-in-depth security program leveraging best-in-class security technology, team members, tactics and techniques available to improve our security posture and to keep up with constantly evolving cybersecurity threats.”
As a leader in legal technology, Filevine provides solutions that make the intersection of legal work and business more seamless, transparent and effortless for all legal professionals and everyone they interact with. Safeguarding legal, business and client data is critical to Filevine’s vision and status as a trusted partner for organizations of all sizes and industries.
Filevine, the leading Legal Work Platform, ranked No. 188 in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list, which honors the companies that redefine the cutting edge, transform business, combine technological innovation and entrepreneurship, and disrupt the technology industry.
The Deloitte Technology Fast 500, now in its 27th year, provides an objective ranking of the 500 fastest-growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences, fintech, and energy tech companies in North America, and is aimed at recognizing the effort, dedication, and resiliency of these companies.
Founded in 2014, Filevine has grown to over 400 employees and 50,000 users, providing top-rated automation tools to law firms, legal departments, and businesses, including case, matter, investigation, and project management software.
“The legal industry has resisted change for a long time, and it is at a crisis point. Filevine wants to forge a better way forward,” says Ryan Anderson, CEO and cofounder of Filevine. “Being one of the fastest growing technology companies and the fastest growing legal technology company in the country shows that change is necessary and happening right now.”
The 2021 ranking was compiled based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their percentage fiscal-year growth over a three-year period. Overall, 2021 Technology Fast 500 companies achieved revenue growth ranging from 212% to 87,037% from 2017 to 2020, with median growth of 521%.
“Each year the Technology Fast 500 shines a light on leading innovators in technology and this year is no exception,” said Paul Silverglate, vice chair, Deloitte LLP and U.S. technology sector leader. “In the face of innumerable challenges resulting from the pandemic, the best and brightest were able to pivot, reinvent and transform and grow. We celebrate the winning organizations and especially the talented employees driving their success.”
The companies on the Fast 500 are not only at the cutting edge, transforming the way we do business, but most importantly, recognize the strategic importance of ongoing innovation, especially in the ever-changing world of technology.
Filevine believes in a brighter future where the intersection of legal work and business is made more seamless, transparent, and effortless for all legal professionals and everyone they interact with through the power of legal technology.
Want the highest-quality lawyers and staff? Use legal case management software to fight burn-out and build a better place to work.
Some are calling this moment “The Great Resignation.” Workers across all industries and skill levels are leaving their jobs for greener pastures. Within the legal industry, this means more lateral hires, with many firms offering huge sign-on bonuses to lure in talent from elsewhere.
But it’s not just about the money. Legal professionals are also resigning out of frustration with stressful, inflexible, or poorly-managed workplaces. Bloomberg Law reports that over the last year, attorneys felt burnt out 40-50% of the time.1
Burnout levels like these aren’t sustainable. The firms that do best during the ‘Great Resignation’ will be those that focus on fighting burn-out, and making the labor of law better for every member of the team.
Here are 10 ways that case management software can be used to improve the experience of working in a law office, and help you keep the talent you need to move forward:
1. Allow remote work
One big reason many give for leaving their jobs is the lack of workplace flexibility. With lingering health concerns, family obligations, and long commutes, many are reluctant to be in an office full-time.
Cloud-based case management software is your best friend when it comes to enabling remote work. Lawyers and staff can access all needed case information from any device, clearly see their tasks and deadlines, collaborate on document drafts and assign work to others, even send and receive texts from within the clients’ case files.
Some legal professionals prefer to work full-time in an office, away from the stressors and distractions of home. Some want one remote day each week. With cloud-based case management software, you have the tools you need to respond rapidly to your team’s unique requirements and preferences.
2. Tame notifications
When every person in a city drives a car, the fastest mode of transportation quickly becomes the slowest. A similar principle can happen with notifications: when you’re constantly distracted by a stream of texts and emails and instant messages about every change on every desktop and phone app you use, you’re less informed and productive than you would be with no notifications at all.
The first step to taming notifications is to centralize communication and updates into one system. Instead of sometimes texting, sometimes calling, sometimes emailing, and occasionally sending an instant message, funnel all communication through the case management system. Reserve more disruptive methods like calls, texts, or in-person interruptions for truly urgent issues.
Secondly, make sure that your centralized system has options for how and when team members get notified. While some might want to get an email or Slack message for each update, make sure they also have the power to choose less frequent, more contained scheduled notifications, to decrease interruptions and help them focus on the work at hand.
3. Stop micromanaging
Many forms of technology can be used to surveil and badger team members. But the sense that a boss is constantly looking over your shoulder quickly leads to burnout. Smart managers will resist the temptation to micromanage and instead use technology to provide more autonomy and flexibility to workers.
With case management software, you can have automated procedures in place that ensure a timely workflow and generate products that meet high standards (for instance, you can give paralegals a button that automatically generates a personalized, accurate document, instead of making them retype it each time). Keep your eye on final products and approaching due dates, and allow each team member to get there in the manner that suits them.
4. Cut out the busy work
Nobody goes to law school in order to spend their days retyping the same form. By strategically deploying automation, you can give lawyers and staff more time to connect with clients and do the kind of work that’s more meaningful to them.
Centralized case management systems can cut out redundant data entry and automatically generate professional, personalized documents. Contract management tools like Outlaw can take the tedium out of work. Rather than endlessly pouring over fine print, you can use advanced contract templates, track each version, and reach meaningful agreement faster.
5. Provide more realistic work expectations
Because it speeds up and simplifies routine legal work, case management software can help reign in expanding workweeks. Advanced analytics can help you diagnose when some members are overloaded and overworked, and help you more fairly share the load.
Your metrics can also help you to reward those team members who are actually contributing to good outcomes and increased client satisfaction, rather than simply rewarding those who appear the busiest and stay in the office latest.
Technology isn’t always used in ways that are affirming of workers. It can make their work into a factory line of increasingly alienating and stressful activity. When you instead seek out technology that prioritizes worker well-being, you can pull in dedicated and reliable team members.
6. Cut down on stress
Stress in the workplace quickly leads to burnout. Some legal work inevitably causes pressure (oral arguments in front of a judge or jury tends to get your adrenaline pumping). But a significant amount of stress in a law office comes from imperfect management techniques and tools.
Case management software can help you set out clearer and more reasonable workflows for each matter. By carefully laying out the entire workflow, with a chain of deadlines, legal workers won’t have to deal with as many last-minute emergencies.
And with the whole workplace on one clear system, you can cut down on that gnawing sense that you’re missing something.
7. Improve your clout as a firm
Workers are more likely to stay with a firm that seems to be going places. This can look like growing in size and profitability, attracting more prestigious clients, taking on more high-profile and meaningful cases, or reaching a wider community with more affordable legal services.
Advanced case management software is one of the tools firms need to grow their power. With tools that improve productivity, enhance client satisfaction, and scale for growth, you can create the kind of firm that the most talented professionals are excited to join.
8. Keep customizing to fit team preferences
Don’t just come to your team with a ready-made case management system. Instead, solicit their needs and desires from the beginning in order to find the tools that will most benefit them. Choose a tool that will allow deep customization, so you can continue to meet shifting needs even after implementation.
By showing your commitment to address team members’ needs, you’re helping them feel better about a long-term commitment to the firm.
9. Make new practice areas more accessible
To earn the loyalty of talented and ambitious legal professionals, you must provide them opportunities to grow and develop.
Case management software can support lawyers as they expand into new legal matters and practice areas. As workflows and deadline chains are mapped out, they can have a clearer framework for the steps in the process. This helps take some of the stress out of the learning curve, and helps ensure higher-quality work.
10. Fight against expectations of 24/7 availability
Finally, protect your team members’ ‘off’ hours and vacation days. Just because someone could continue working from anywhere at any time doesn’t mean they always should. One of the biggest stressors from new technologies is from the ways they can disrupt our old work/life balance. Make sure you implement new technologies.
Once again, adjusting notification settings in your case management system can help. But also the behavior of leaders plays a huge role in keeping boundaries strong. Leaders must set a strong example by knowing when to go home themselves, refrain from sending messages late in the evening, and keep matters running ahead of deadline so there are fewer last-minute emergencies demanding heroic work efforts.
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Modern legal professionals are facing some big issues right now. But they also have tremendous opportunities for growth and advancement. Case management software can’t solve all possible problems, but it can be a powerful tool in giving workers greater power and satisfaction in their work.
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1Linda Ouyang, “Analysis: Attorneys’ Well-Being Deficits Need on-the-Job Help,” news.bloomberglaw.com (Bloomberg Law, November 1, 2021), https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/analysis-attorneys-well-being-deficits-need-on-the-job-help.