4-page Case Study - Posted 8/21/2008

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Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP

Law Firm Realizes Improved Client Satisfaction with New Collaboration Platform

With 14 offices in the United States and Europe, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP provides a broad range of legal services to its clients. Since its founding in 1906, Sonnenschein has taken a leadership role in the use of innovative, service-enhanced technologies. To make its large and growing volume of client and business information available to customers, attorneys, and staff worldwide, Sonnenschein embraced Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 and Open Text Corporation’s Legal Information Management suite. Each law office now offers 24-hour access to information 365 days a year, as well as the means to collaborate with clients globally to ensure that case-related details and status reports can be communicated instantly. The benefits include improved operational efficiency, cost and time savings, and enhanced client satisfaction.

Situation

Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP regularly assists Fortune 1000 companies located across the globe. The firm provides high-quality legal services across a broad offering of practice areas including corporate and international law, public law and policy, litigation, real estate, financial services, intellectual property, environmental law, and healthcare. Ever since Sonnenschein opened its first office in Chicago in 1906, its clients have been assured of receiving the kind of world-class service that the law firm first built its reputation on.

Early on, Sonnenschein decided to take a leadership role in the use of innovative, service-enhancing technologies. The firm was one of the first to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Internet, and its clients note that this is among the reasons why Sonnenschein consistently and uniquely meets and exceeds their expectations.

Today, with more than 1,700 employees in 14 offices worldwide, Sonnenschein maintains a vast amount of information. As a result, the challenge in recent years has been for Sonnenschein to harness and manage this large and ever growing amount of data—7 million files and counting—which includes case-related documents, as well as customer relationship management information, business operations and financial data, and marketing collateral.

Operations at the more established Sonnenschein law offices originally depended on Lotus and other legacy software applications. But these soon proved to be inefficient in part because they didn’t always communicate or work well with the other systems, even those within the same office. Further, data managed at these older offices was often stored across various servers with different user interfaces. Although Sonnenschein law offices always maintained an abundance of vital, client-related legal and business information, it wasn’t always easy to access that information. In fact, in many of the legacy systems, searching for data was not even possible. In these situations, finding crucial information relevant to a specific case was often time-consuming, labor intensive, and costly.

Because the client services that Sonnenschein provides depend on information being available 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year, attorneys and staff at each office must have immediate access to case-related materials. They must also be able to collaborate efficiently with all team members, whether they are in the same office or across the globe, and to communicate with and keep clients up-to-date on legal matters, regardless of the clients’ location.

Solution

Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP takes pride in the leadership role it has taken among law firms in embracing the use of technology to deliver world-class service to its clients. Sonnenschein management applied that same leadership in seeking a solution to address the information needs of the firm’s offices.

When the Sonnenschein leadership team determined that it needed a new document management system, it evaluated its options in terms of three key objectives: (1) the chosen solution should ensure that information could easily be made available throughout its systems in a timely manner and would be accessible whenever needed; (2) the chosen solution should enable collaboration between attorneys and staff at any Sonnenschein office regardless of geography and time zone; and (3) the chosen solution should expedite the process of keeping Sonnenschein clients advised of new developments and progress on a case or relevant legal matter.

SharePoint Server 2007 allows us to access and exchange information across all of our offices. It allows us to collaborate on ‘work products,’ keep our clients informed, and use time efficiently. Andy Jurczyk CIO, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP

After careful consideration, Sonnenschein chose to implement a document-management solution based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007 because that product is compatible with the rest of the ubiquitous Microsoft Office system and enables the firm to utilize software designed specifically for the legal industry.

“SharePoint Server 2007 allows us to access and exchange information across all of our offices. It allows us to collaborate on ‘work products,’ keep our clients informed, and use time efficiently,” says Andy Jurczyk, Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Sonnenschein.

Sonnenschein utilizes LegalKEY Records Management software, a component of the Open Text Corporation’s Legal Information Management suite that delivers a solution on top of Office SharePoint Server 2007. Open Text, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, tailored this software solution especially for law firms.

“The solution based on SharePoint Server and Open Text has allowed us to aggregate important data for our users that can be searchable and accessed very quickly. We have the ability to incorporate LegalKEY workflows within our SharePoint Server 2007 environment,” Jurczyk notes, adding, “We have a significant amount of data that was never searchable in the past. SharePoint Server 2007 has collected all that information for us and allowed us to present it in a neat and easy-to-use container for our user community.”

Because of the sheer number of files at Sonnenschein— by a recent estimate 7 million and growing—providing the means to access the data in a timely manner depends on the robust search capabilities offered by Office SharePoint Server 2007.

“Office SharePoint Server 2007 is an easy, flexible tool to use. I can go to one place to do a search and get back all the information I need from a variety of systems. With our old system, you had to go to a variety of systems and conduct a search in each one to get what you needed. This system just makes my life easier and makes things happen faster, so I can get to other important tasks during my day,” says Caryn Alavi, Business Systems Analyst at Sonnenschein.

“Searches can be performed in lightning speed compared to our old system whether your search returns 40 or 50,000 results. We have the filtering tools that we enhanced within the SharePoint Server solution to allow us to filter by practice group, by attorneys, by authors, by clients— anything that would be specific to the business. Plus, the filtering tools are smart enough to know what filters to apply, depending on the results of the search,” Jurczyk explains.

This filtering capability is provided by utilizing the Business Data Catalog (BDC), a business integration feature in Office SharePoint Server 2007. The BDC enables Office SharePoint Server 2007 to surface business data from back-end server applications without any coding. It effectively bridges the gap between the portal site and business applications, enabling data from various business applications to be included in SharePoint Server 2007 search, lists, Web parts, user profiles, and custom applications.

“Never before has there been a tool that successfully pulled together all the data that we have in our various databases. Office SharePoint Server 2007 certainly ‘hit the mark,’ ” Jurczyk observes.

Benefits

Using Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Open Text solution offerings, Sonnenschein is able to offer its clients world-class service in a timelier and more efficient manner.
“This solution allows us to collaborate better as a firm, to share information and communicate better with our clients, to run our business better, and to create workflows that will allow the business to run more efficiently. This was a true bull’s-eye,” Jurczyk says.

“Frankly, that was an unexpected benefit of SharePoint Server 2007. We knew that it was going to be easier, but it wasn’t until we got into it that we realized how much easier it was going to be. Things that literally took days or that paralegals were billing out overtime for, now take just a few minutes. That translates into a savings for our clients. It’s definitely a win-win for both Sonnenschein and our clients,” Held adds.

The end result has been enhanced client satisfaction levels.

Quick and Easy Access to Information

Making the information available to those who need it, regardless of where they might be located, is also no longer a time-consuming and costly task. Previously, to bring an associate up-to-date on a case required shipping perhaps hundreds of documents or sending them in e mail. Now, these same documents can be easily posted to a central location. All individuals who have been granted access privileges to the site can review, comment, and edit the information in real time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Potential version control problems are also averted.

With the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 solution, clients are now able to see in real time what they couldn’t before without help from their attorneys or the Sonnenschein Legal Support team. Previously, paralegals and secretaries had to manually enter data to be provided to clients—often in more than one data repository. But the task of data entry has been eliminated because Office SharePoint Server 2007 enables clients to look in one place for the information they need, regardless of where or when it is needed.

Stephen Held, Development Manager at Sonnenschein, agrees: “We did not previously have a good platform for allowing groups of users to collaborate internally or with their clients. Having this available through Office SharePoint Server 2007 has been a big hit.”

Time Savings, Greater User Adoption

The ease of use of the new system and the resulting time savings have been big factors in encouraging the adoption of the system among users at all levels at the law offices.

“With the old system, I had to go to five or six different systems to get the information that I can get today in one search,” Alavi notes. “Each system had its own interface. You had to know how to use that application, you had to know how to do a correct search in this other application, and the results often came back differently. It was a very time-consuming task. With the SharePoint Server solution, I don’t have to know the author or what system the information is in. I can do one search and be able to find it, no matter where it’s at. It’s a very easy system to work with, and I use it on a daily basis.”

At Sonnenschein during the rollout phase, many users were eager to explore the offerings of the new system on their own. So although the firm offered product demonstrations, it did not require employees to attend training classes.

“We didn’t do any formal training program,” says Held. “We just basically sent e-mail to our users, linking to the portal and explaining what it does. Then, after a period of about two weeks, we offered demonstrations for them to see how it worked. Even by the time we offered the demos, people had already gotten in and started using it. They were commenting during the demonstrations about how easy it was to use and to find the information they needed.”

Streamlined Matter Management

Sonnenschein has realized additional efficiency in tasks related to project management and bringing new employees on board. Because attorneys and staff spend less time on gathering and managing information, they are empowered to devote more time to other vital activities. Ultimately, it helps ensure that the legal team provides the right solution to a client faster and better.
“I have the ability to maintain a whole project and quickly can get somebody up to speed if they’re joining a project. They just need to go to a site, look at all the information, see a history of everything that’s there, including documents, tasks, and risks. They can review everything in one fell swoop,” Alavi explains.

“I don’t have to forward 200 e-mail messages to an individual when they join a project, or send a new project-related document so that it might then be stored in 10 or 15 different locations or inboxes. I don’t have to be concerned that everyone is working with the same version of the document. There is a huge time savings using this new system,” Alavi adds.

With Office SharePoint Server 2007, the firm’s attorneys and staff can easily create a new project site. They can then upload files to the site, and all the people working on the project can be notified about new postings immediately or at a time that they specify.

“With our previous solution, the process to load data onto the site was pretty cumbersome. To load, say, 100 documents onto the site took 100 clicks and quite a bit of time. Today, I just drag the files into place, and it takes minutes. It’s easy. And it’s been one of the biggest hits with our paralegals and secretaries,” Held observes.

Shortened Solution Development

Beyond shortened development times, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 has offered Sonnenschein significant solution development advantages.
“I was most impressed with the short amount of time required to develop a solution on SharePoint Server 2007. We were able to leverage our Microsoft .NET skills and quickly produce a world-class solution,” Jurczyk adds.

“Our entire intranet was built out with two developer resources, and our entire extranet was built out with two developer resources,” Held explains.

With the previous system, some user requests for new features simply couldn’t be implemented. This has not been a problem with the system based on Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Open Text.
“Within a pretty quick time frame, we were able to build some really robust features that our users love. I love it. I know the development team loves working with it. We can build out solutions in a couple of weeks that may have taken a couple of months before,” Held says.

Once the Sonnenschein development team determined the approach that it wanted to take, it was able to accomplish projects rather quickly. Employing its skills with the Business Data Catalog, the Sonnenschein development team integrated a learning management solution in less than three weeks. Adding a component to the old platform would have been a much larger and lengthier project, Held notes.

“We were able to use the BDC efficiently to customize a solution that is specific for Sonnenschein, but at the same time it’s a standard solution that’s supported by Microsoft and is not a nightmare to maintain,” Jurczyk observes.

Enhanced Client Satisfaction

Although the development process and feature sets of the new solution might be transparent to the client, the user features have been very visible, have added value, and have helped Sonnenschein enhance client satisfaction.

“We’ve gotten some really positive responses about our extranet solution. We’ve had direct interaction with some of the firm’s clients who have used the extranet and embraced it. Our extranet platform was recently used in a client pitch to win some new business for the firm as well,” Held observes.

“We can now provide our clients with a range of services, and we can do this altogether, taking a collaborator approach versus offering it on a piecemeal basis,” Alavi adds.

“We expect that Office SharePoint Server will allow Sonnenschein to accomplish its strategic business goal of doubling in size over the course of the next two years,” says Jurczyk. “There’s no way we could provide that growth in business without this technology solution. We now have workflows in place and technologies in place that will allow the business to grow strategically. SharePoint Server is the key to making it happen.”

 
Microsoft Office System
The Microsoft Office system is the business world’s chosen environment for information work, providing the programs, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.

For more information about the Microsoft Office system, go to:
www.microsoft.com/office  

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com

For more information about Open Text Corporation products and services, call (519) 888-7111 or visit the Web site at:
www.opentext.com

For more information about Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP products and services, call (312) 876-8000 or visit the Web site at:
www.sonnenschein.com