Finding fewer, more relevant records nine times faster with iManage

The solution

Centralizing knowledge management with iManage

Barry.Nilsson. has used iManage for document management since 2004. When Blum saw a demonstration of iManage Insight, he realized it was the perfect solution to find relevant data faster and reduce the amount of time spent searching manually for knowledge and experience.

“No other product comes close to the functionality that iManage offers. We evaluated the solutions on the market but going with iManage was a no brainer — and centralizing knowledge management with one vendor makes life easier for the IT team,” Blum said.

Working with iManage professional services and their implementation partner, Morae, the IT team built a platform called OSKR (One Solution for Knowledge and Research). Powered by iManage, OSKR gives family and insurance lawyers a single pane of glass
to view all of the critical information about their practices and clients. They can easily navigate across clients, matters, and/or documents, quickly identify experts to help with specific issues, and access best practice content and templates. This enables attorneys to manage information more efficiently and deliver better outcomes for their clients.

“It was challenging to build a solution that supports both insurance and family law, but iManage and Morae supported us every step of the way,” recalled Blum. “While family lawyers need to find multiple documents from different locations quickly for a divorce settlement, someone working on an insurance matter might be looking at how knowledge was used previously in a similar scenario.”

Barry.Nilsson. also uses iManage Share to balance security with accessibility when collaborating with partners and clients on files.

Business outcomes

Finding critical information nine times faster

When OSKR went live, Barry.Nilsson. challenged two paralegals to find knowledge on a specific area of law. One used the previous process, and the other used OSKR. While OSKR’s advanced search capabilities took just three minutes to complete the search, the previous approach took 27 minutes. iManage Insight also helped OSKR to filter the results to fewer, more accurate records — producing 73 documents versus the old solution’s 500.

Lawyers can narrow results on contextual information and contents to quickly get to the heart of the matter. “The custom filters we built mean people can search by areas of law, state, or legislation, which means they can perform much more advanced searches,” Blum commented. “And OSKR is so easy to use we can find documents nine times faster than previously.”

This is great news for lawyers, who can spend time on more satisfying work. The platform also means the firm can reduce non-billable overheads by empowering junior lawyers to do vital research — which can’t be charged to a client — faster and from a single system.

Using modern search relevancy algorithms delivers a search experience that mirrors modern search expectations. One senior associate enthused: “The OSKR knowledge application is very intuitive to use, due to its similarities with other research platforms,” while a paralegal reported: “I really like OSKR. It is super easy to use and so quick to find what I am looking for — and I’m pretty technologically challenged!”

Similarly impressed, a principal lawyer on the insurance side commented “iManage is a fantastic platform that has significantly changed the way we search for knowledge.”

Taking security seriously

Barry.Nilsson. can also demonstrate compliance with security regulations using iManage, which reassures clients that they can trust the firm with their data.

“iManage is a key part of our security strategy. We’re working on meeting strict ISO 27001 requirements, and the solution will be vital to doing that quickly and easily. It will also help us comply with GDPR on the family law side,” confirmed Blum. “With so much riding on our reputation, iManage is the perfect partner to demonstrate that we take security very seriously.”

Looking ahead

Beyond wowing its employees and ensuring compliance for clients, the firm is launching a five-year strategy to move to the cloud. In addition to migrating OSKR and iManage Share over to iManage Cloud, the team plans to implement iManage Security Policy Manager to simplify creating ethical walls, and iManage Threat Manager to protect against security breaches.

iManage is also helping Barry.Nilsson. win more business. When bidding for large tenders with insurance companies, the platform demonstrates the firm is actively investing in reducing client costs by helping its team be more engaged, efficient, and productive.