Customer Stories
Bicalho Navarro restores reliable access to 1.5 M documents
Greater trust in knowledge search results enables attorneys to work with confidence in the iManage Cloud.
Bicalho Navarro Advogados needed more confidence that the firm's knowledge would be there when attorneys needed it — something its previous platform couldn't deliver. Files that attorneys viewed as “saved” weren't always there when they looked for them, and searches didn't always return the results they expected. Rather than continuing to work around the limitations, the firm began looking for a cloud-based platform that would deliver reliability first. The firm now manages roughly 1.5 million documents in iManage Work in the Cloud. The switch to iManage has restored the firm’s confidence. Recent matters and filing suggestions surface directly inside Outlook, a major win for users. In addition, IT has implemented an automated workflow that pulls data from iManage Threat Manager, consolidating dozens of daily security alerts into a single weekly report.
“The biggest impact has been confidence. That was our primary concern when we decided to replace our previous system, and iManage completely met our expectations.”
Diego Oliveira, IT Manager at Bicalho Navarro Advogados
The business challenge
A cloud-based platform that delivers results attorneys can trust
Unreliability and inconsistent search results created anxiety for Bicalho Navarro’s attorneys around its documents. “We had several issues with the previous platform,” said Diego Oliveira, IT Manager at Bicalho Navarro Advogados. “People thought they had saved their work, but later couldn’t find the document. That was a big concern.” The solution’s inconsistent search results compounded the problem.
Rather than continue to work around the limitations, the firm began looking for a cloud-based platform that would deliver results the attorneys could trust.
Headquarters
São Paulo, Brazil
Industry
Legal
Products
Benefits
Greater document reliability
Automated security-alert triage
AI-assisted clause and contract research
Native Outlook workflow integration
About partner
Docwise provides consulting, training, support, and implementation services centered around document and content management to clients in Brazil.
"The biggest impact has been confidence. That was our primary concern when we decided to replace our previous system, and iManage completely met our expectations."
Diego Oliveira, IT Manager, Bicalho Navarro Advogados
The solution
The migration was tailored to our needs
The firm selected iManage Work 10 in the Cloud, which has a strong customer base in Brazil. Then they chose an implementation partner, Docwise, and set to work. Getting 1.5 million documents ready to migrate from the fundamentally different architecture of their legacy system into iManage might have been disruptive, but Bicalho Navarro worked closely with Docwise to ensure a successful transition. For one thing, they made a point of migrating the existing document structure rather than starting from scratch. While recreating what had worked well for them in the old architecture, they also cleaned up the existing files, removing years of content the firm no longer needed to keep.
“The support we received from Docwise made a tremendous difference. They helped us recreate our previous environment inside iManage, and the migration was tailored to our needs,” says Oliveira.
Adoption proceeded quickly. “I expected the transition to be much more chaotic. Instead, everything went surprisingly well. By the second month, we were receiving very few support requests,” Oliveira recalls. The firm has put tight restrictions on saving content outside of iManage, which has helped the office adapt to the change from day one.
1.5M
documents
confidence
restored
100% adoption
in just two months
The business outcomes
iManage completely met our expectations
For Bicalho Navarro, the most significant outcome of adopting the iManage platform wasn’t a shiny new feature. “The biggest impact has been confidence,” remarks Oliveira. “That was our primary concern when we decided to replace our previous system, and iManage completely met our expectations.”
That confidence translates directly into daily productivity: Bicalho Navarro attorneys spend less time worrying about lost work and more time on client matters. Deep Microsoft integrations help by surfacing recent matters and filing suggestions directly inside Outlook, Word, and Excel.
“The Outlook integration is probably the biggest advantage for us,” says Oliveira. “Everything feels natural. Users don't even realize everything happening behind the scenes.”
Also “behind the scenes,” on the security side, Oliveira built an automated workflow that routes iManage Threat Manager alerts into Outlook and has Microsoft Copilot summarize them in a single report.
“Instead of reviewing thirty different alert emails throughout the week, I receive one consolidated report every Monday morning,” he confirms. Reporting from Threat Manager lets Oliveira know how people are using the platform and who they are. “I don't see Threat Manager only as a tool that catches bad actors. For us, it's primarily an educational tool.”
Ask iManage is valuable, practical, and saves time
A select group of Bicalho Navarro attorneys is evaluating Ask iManage, the AI assistant built into the iManage platform, and Oliveira is considering recommending the tool for broader adoption. “The firm’s attorneys use Ask iManage to locate precedent clauses and analyze lengthy contracts, reducing or eliminating the manual effort in legal research,” says Renato José Mirisola Rodrigues, a Partner at Bicalho Navarro Advogados.
“The idea of having AI navigate all our firm's documents is incredibly valuable. It's practical, and it saves time,” Rodrigues adds. “Instead of trying to remember where a document is or spending hours searching for it, I simply ask Ask iManage to find it.”
Having Ask iManage surface a specific clause within a hundred-page PDF, rather than reading the document in full, is a use case the firm sees expanding into contract drafting and clause comparison over time.
“The foundation of every AI solution is data,” says Oliveira. “Our firm’s knowledge lives inside iManage. That’s exactly why Ask iManage is so valuable. I believe it will become an increasingly important part of our lawyers' everyday work.”
