DORDA implements modern document management in the Cloud

With a history of handling complex legal matters with flair and expertise, the Austrian law firm DORDA attributes its success to a visionary founding spirit, and its strength to the diversity of its employees. The firm decided to replace the basic document management capability in its practice management solution (PMS) with a dedicated document management system, iManage Work 10 in the Cloud. User adoption is high, and ongoing support from iManage and iManage partner IRIS Nederlands ensures that any issues that arise are resolved quickly with zero impact on client services.

DORDA is one of the largest law firms in Austria, providing award-winning support to Austrian companies, international groups, and start-ups for 45 years. Following a credo of clear guidance, proactive advice, and short reaction times, its team of 150 staff, including 100 lawyers working across 23 practice areas, deliver clarity in an increasingly complex world.

The business challenge

Modernize, standardize, and support hybrid workers

As the legal industry responds to changing client demands and an increasingly digital-native workforce, DORDA was rethinking its document management processes.

“Younger employees expect a healthy work-life balance. We adopted hybrid working and allow everyone to work remotely for two days a week,” explains Heinrich Kühnert, Partner at DORDA. “In parallel, we also wanted to explore how technology could help us improve collaboration and productivity and standardize how we work.”

The firm’s PMS is an on-premises solution, and while it has some document management capability, it lacks the kind of comprehensive document management capabilities DORDA employees desired.

The limited capabilities of the document management tool in the PMS presented an obstacle to creating a more efficient and productive process for how people managed their work. So Kühnert and Christian Kirchmayer, Office Manager at DORDA, began searching for a fully featured document management system (DMS) that would meet the firm’s requirements.

“With the threat of cyberattacks increasing, we had two choices to protect our data — investing even more heavily in security talent and expanding our IT team, or outsourcing security by partnering with the experts,” says Kühnert.

Kühnert and Kirchmayer envisioned a cloud solution that would keep client data safe but accessible, with advanced security safeguards built in, and the relevant security certifications in place. Ideally, the solution would be designed to support legal users and the ways they prefer to work.

The solution

Secure, reliable, single-source access and collaboration in the cloud

After evaluating the solutions on the market, DORDA selected iManage Work 10 in the Cloud and partnered with IRIS Nederland to streamline and support their implementation.

“Moving to the cloud was a strategic decision as well as practical. iManage Work 10 in the Cloud meets our requirements and takes care of updates, leaving our IT team free to focus on other activities,” explains Kühnert. “With help from IRIS Nederland, iManage Work 10 was live in about six months.”

The firm opted for a “big bang” adoption, which has yielded high levels of usage for client work. The firm also handles communication around internal matters on the platform, which helps speed up decision-making. Today, the firm’s 100 fee-earning professionals, personal assistants, and admin staff use iManage Work 10 in the Cloud.

Standardizing document management

With iManage Work 10, the firm has standardized how documents and emails are stored and accessed, which makes it easier to search for documents and improves version control. Employees use iManage Share to exchange confidential information or large volumes of data that clients need access to and iManage Drive to make files available offline.

“iManage Drive is very useful when we have limited access to the internet, such as on flights or at court. WiFi can be patchy in court, and it’s important that we can always access what we need,” says Kühnert.

The IT team also uses iManage Threat Manager to monitor usage, deliver user analytics, and manage sensitive data. They accomplished this easily by creating three simple rules:

1. Select users and groups
2. Define criteria
3. Define the action to be taken if the criteria are met

Business outcomes

Empowering lawyers to focus on what they do best

Since rolling out iManage, DORDA has increased both security and the ability of their employees to work from anywhere. Accidental deletions and overwriting are a thing of the past, and the IT team has fewer user-related issues to resolve.

Kirchmayer said that adoption among legal professionals is very high. “We are confident that our decision to standardize documents and emails on iManage Work 10 in the Cloud and implement iManage Share was the right move for the firm, our employees, and our clients.”

The broad capabilities of the iManage platform mean DORDA has fewer applications and integrations to be concerned with, and its smooth interoperability with the firm’s PMS reduced the complexity of its deployment.

“The collaboration between iManage, our PMS provider, and IRIS Nederland helped us to work jointly during implementation and optimize our rollout” says Kirchmayer. “There was no duplicated effort, and the collaboration was highly professional and efficient.”

The firm also praised IRIS Nederland’s analytical approach as part of the migration strategy, which helped DORDA make an informed decision about how to approach the implementation.

“iManage is a great platform, and IRIS Nederland is an invaluable partner. The ongoing, out-of-hours support from IRIS Nederland means knowledge work issues never slow us down. We now have a modern DMS to support our digital-native workforce,” concludes Kühnert.

Looking ahead

The firm is looking at rolling out iManage Security Policy Manager to standardize the application of its enterprise-wide data retention policy and to ensure compliance across the firm.