CaseStudy

From Document Manager Magazine Vol 18 No 01 - January/February 2010

Law firm Browne Jacobson LLP has been able to free up its partners to focus on strategic -and billable - tasks since implementing a mailroom automation solution from eCopy

Browne Jacobson LLP is a law firm headquartered in Nottingham with a further two offices in Birmingham and London. Having quadrupled in size over the last ten years, the firm's 257 lawyers, including 67 partners, are supported by a team of professional specialists. The firm's experience covers a wide variety of client portfolios comprising blue chip organisations, NHS trusts, local authorities and other public sector organisations.

As a means to drive efficiency across the business and move towards a paperless office, Browne Jacobson needed to automate its mailroom process. Having implemented Interwoven's Autonomy iManage Worksite Document Management System (DMS) about three years earlier, the firm wanted to leverage its investment by scanning incoming post straight to the DMS. Additional project drivers included the need to reduce cost, mitigate risk and improve compliance throughout the business.

Processing between 600-1,000 pieces of mail each day, the nine-member mailroom team spent a large proportion of their time opening, date stamping and sorting post into relevant pigeon holes designated to individual lawyers or departments ready to be sent to the various offices. In addition to this, secretarial staff in each office collected the post, sorted it and delivered as appropriate, scanning to email where necessary, before saving the generated PDF attachment into the DMS.

Connection the key
Peter Birley, director of IT and business operations at Browne Jacobson explains: "Having attended various IT conferences and reviewed a number of provider websites and case studies, we also consulted with legal IT director peer groups to find a solution. While many solutions we came across catered for SharePoint, eCopy was selected based on its ability to integrate mailroom automation with our existing DMS, thereby creating the workflows required. We agreed to a four-week pilot scheme at the head office to test the eCopy solution, processing between 20 and 30 pieces of mail each day.

"Nuance developed a custom built connector so that the incoming mail could be saved in the correct folder within Autonomy iManage WorkSite. Mail content became searchable using optical character recognition (OCR), saving more time by recalling the correspondence much quicker and reducing potential loss. This solution could not be simpler to use as all the intelligence is on the barcode."

Incoming post is opened and stacked along with a barcode sheet identifying the recipient of the mail and scanned as one batch using the eCopy system. The barcode sheet identifies the correct folder for the relevant lawyer within the DMS. Individual mail items are split using separator sheets to ensure that each item, regardless of the number of pages, is saved as a unique PDF to ensure ease of use. The electronic post can then be viewed by the lawyer or secretary and filed straight into the relevant Matter file as appropriate.

Mailroom automation rollout
By scanning incoming post straight into the DMS, the firm saw a reduction in physical mail administration and delivery, saving time and maximising efficiency by streamlining processes. Furthermore, because post was electronic, scanned mail documents were found in a much shorter time than before and appropriate action was taken more promptly.
Birley explains: "The eCopy solution from Nuance helped ensure that lawyers adhered to industry regulations by ensuring that they opened all mail in order to deal with the content, including any complaints that may have arisen. If a partner was away, we could easily identify unopened mail and ensure that it was dealt with as opposed to piling up unopened on a desk."

Following the success of the mailroom automation pilot at the head office, Browne Jacobson plans to rollout the solution to the two remaining offices.

"We required a solution to automate our mailroom delivery tasks into one single process," concludes Peter Birley. "Using eCopy solutions from Nuance enables us to save the scanned post directly into Autonomy iManage WorkSite. Critical information is delivered faster, which means we can resolve queries more quickly. Automating scanning and classification of incoming mail also frees up time for partners to focus on more strategic tasks. Ultimately that means more capacity for billable client work."

More info: www.ecopy.com

CaseStudy