Tanenbaum Keale LLP maximizes client service with iManage in the Cloud

With offices in Florida, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, Tanenbaum Keale LLP is a litigation boutique handling matters ranging from product liability and catastrophic injury to environmental and toxic tort litigation. Its talented team of approximately 23 attorneys provides its clients with multidimensional solutions to meet their business and litigation needs.

When the firm launched in 2017, it needed a document management system that would integrate seamlessly with other solutions in its legal tech stack and align with its cloud-first strategy. It implemented iManage Work 10 and iManage Share to give users secure access to documents and rich features to support everyday productivity. Today, attorneys are more efficient, can work securely and remotely, and the firm has a cost-effective, scalable solution that supports its growth plans.

The challenge

Building a foundation of excellence from day one

When Tanenbaum Keale LLP was founded, Michael Tanenbaum set out a vision “to provide legal services from a platform that integrates decades of litigation management, resolution, trial and appellate experience with cutting-edge technological tools that provide unique opportunities for collaboration and partnerships with our clients.”

And it’s not just legal expertise that the firm needed to integrate. To give employees the best possible digital experience, Chief Technologist Kenneth Jones, along with all members of the technology team, worked to implement a knowledge work management platform that would integrate seamlessly with other solutions in the legal tech stack to empower attorneys and legal professionals to focus on the work that matters most to them.

“Microsoft Office 365, Teams, iManage, and our SaaS litigation matter management subsidiary (Xerdict Group), are all integral workplace tools within the firm’s legal stack,” said Jones. “The role of the IT department is to make life easier for attorneys by finding the best systems and pulling them together to create a seamless user experience. We wanted to establish a strong foundation for our team from the very start."

The firm also wanted a cloud-based solution that would grow and scale in line with the emerging business, and enable safe, secure access from anywhere.

The solution

An integrated cloud solution

Tanenbaum Keale LLP engaged its partner Micro Strategies to implement iManage Work in the Cloud and onboard the firm’s users soon after the firm’s inception in early 2017. “Being able to spin up iManage in the Cloud quickly with no hardware was a huge benefit for us so we could hit the ground running,” said Jones. “Everything we use is in the cloud, it’s one of our core strategic imperatives to control costs and mitigate risks.”

This was particularly useful when the pandemic hit, and attorneys could seamlessly pivot to remote working using tools and consumer-like interfaces with which they were familiar.

iManage is integrated with a number of solutions, including Microsoft Outlook, Teams, and legal-specific applications such as AdvoLogix. “One of the most exciting things about iManage is its integration points. Having close alignment with the platforms, for example, gives us more opportunities to share data and means our attorneys can work with solutions they’ve used before,” said Jones.

The platform also simplifies collaboration between teams who often work with other practice groups, clients, and jurisdictions to delegate work to legal assistants and professionals, ensuring that different user groups can only access data relevant to their case.

Enhancing the user experience

To promote productivity and reduce manual tasks and admin, the team is taking full advantage of the rich feature set that iManage Work 10 offers, including enhanced searches, the Outlook Work Panel, and drag-and-drop filing.

“iManage gives us the ability to control all aspects of the platform on a user level. Some attorneys prefer to search by client matter number, and others prefer to query documents by the description. Having the flexibility to please both groups is something that sets iManage apart from competing platforms,” commented Jones.

The firm is also using iManage Share to simplify sharing files in complex directory trees with external partners to support efficient legal representation.

Business outcomes

A scalable, reliable platform for success

For Tanenbaum Keale LLP, iManage simplifies day-to-day life for its employees and provides attorneys and legal professionals with fast, secure access to everything they need to defend cases, conduct depositions and respond to interrogatories from a central, user-friendly interface.

“iManage is a highly respected platform, which is really important to give our clients an extra level of assurance. The integrated solution also means attorneys can be more productive in fewer clicks, which cuts down on admin allowing them to focus on higher value work,” said Jones. “Ultimately, that enhances our value proposition to clients and makes us more competitive.”

Looking ahead

And, with a full cloud stack, Tanenbaum Keale LLP can scale that efficiency seamlessly and cost-effectively, in line with company growth. “In terms of performance, iManage is excellent. When we need to bring on new clients or matters in the future, we know we can easily spin up additional capacity and onboard documents or users without buying on-premises hardware or experiencing capacity-induced downtime. iManage single-handedly removes any document management-related barriers to growth,” commented Jones.