Leading Brazilian law firm takes a modern approach to document management

One of the most respected and admired law firms in Brazil, Lazzareschi, Hilal, Bolina & Rocha Advogados (LHB&R Advogados) practices civil and corporate law in court and arbitration, as well as providing consultancy and legal advice. Based in São Paulo, the firm and its partners have received multiple awards from Chambers and Partners, Best Lawyers, and Análise Advocacia Magazine.

The firm wanted to modernize its approach to document management. Low adherence to naming conventions made it difficult to find the right information in the on-premises system they used. Security and backup solutions were costly and complex to maintain. The firm knew that the right system would give their legal team more freedom to focus on producing high-quality work for clients. After an extensive evaluation process and supported by Totvs, an iManage partner in Latin America, the firm rolled out a suite of iManage solutions on the iManage Cloud platform. The lawyers at LHB&R Advogados now securely access their documents from anywhere. They collaborate securely both in-house and with clients using iManage Share and maintain control and transparency over the firm’s data with iManage Threat Manager, while easily demonstrating their compliance with client requirements.

The business challenge

Finding and collaborating on documents

LHB&R Advogados handles large, complex cases that require the firm’s unique expertise. Providing bespoke, high-quality services requires that the legal team is able to find the right documents, collaborate in-house with other practices and with clients and apply their knowledge without the distraction of underperforming technology or tools.

The firm’s hybrid workplace creates added pressure to make documents accessible from anywhere. And while they had a file directory and dictates around file saving and naming conventions, these were not reliably followed, making it harder for staff to locate and share the correct files.

“Documents were filed by client or case, but unless they were named correctly, it was difficult to find them,” explains Guilherme Rauen Silva Jardim, a partner at the firm.

“It also increased the risk of data loss and duplicated effort. If we couldn’t find a document, we had to recreate it, which is time-consuming and inefficient.”

When the team collaborated with other firms, they shared documents using OneDrive and email links. Working on the same document on the same document in real-time or even passing the document back and forth created version control issues.

Protecting client data

LHB&R Advogados must also assure clients that their data is secure and accessed only by authorized personnel, in compliance with national data protection laws. To achieve this, they protected on-premises servers with firewalls, antivirus software, regular backups, and password protection for sensitive data.

“We wanted to move to the cloud both to increase security and to take back ownership of our document management,” says Dr. Caio Julius Bolina, who is also a partner at LHB&R Advogados. “IT could restrict access to files using passwords, on request, but we worried about the potential of sensitive data being compromised if an unauthorized person obtained the password.”

The solution

A staged migration to Brazil’s leading knowledge work platform

Following an extensive evaluation, LHB&R Advogados implemented a suite of iManage solutions, including iManage Work 10 in the Cloud, iManage Share, and iManage Threat Manager. The partners were impressed by the platform’s high levels of security and intuitive user experience.

The firm’s implementation partner, Totvs, helped them choose the right solution. Despite having its own document management platform, Totvs recommended iManage as the best fit for their needs. “iManage is the most popular document management solution in Brazil and has great local language support documentation,” notes Jardim.

A staged approach made the transition more manageable for LHB&R Advogados. Totvs provided training and set up the platform and system configuration in Portuguese. The firm re-evaluated their approach to document management and introduced new naming conventions to ensure staff could find the right documents in the new system.

The firm’s data was deduplicated and migrated into iManage over a three-month period. They brought the most used and most important Word documents over first and migrated PDFs, emails, and third-party files at a later stage. This helped staff acclimatize to the platform without feeling overwhelmed.

LHB&R Advogados created training manuals tailored for different roles and made learning resources available on demand.

“Guilherme led a very smooth transition,” says Dr. Bolina. “With his support, people got comfortable with iManage quickly — and today we have 100 percent user adoption across lawyers, interns, and admins.”