Brown Rudnick replaces in-house template solution with BigHand Document Creation to streamline document production process across all global offices

Firm Overview

Brown Rudnick LLP is an international law firm of over 230 lawyers routinely serving clients needs in high-stakes litigation, international arbitration and complex business transactions in markets across the globe. With nine offices in the United States and Europe, the firm provides counsel and services to public and private corporations, multinational Fourtune 100 businesses and start-up enterprises.

Business Challenge

In 2011, Brown Rudnick set out to streamline and centralise their document production process as part of a larger technology upgrade initiative, initially across their US offices. They were looking for a solution that would allow for increased workflow and, unlike their existing in-house solution, was able to integrate with Outlook and their Document Management System.

Since the documents produced at Brown Rudnick ranged in difficulty from simple memos to complex agreements, it was crucial that they had a robust, accurate and efficient process in place that would cater for all requirements, whilst still being intuitive to use.

Our need for a new approach to templated documents was two-fold. We knew that we needed to take advantage of newer technology to provide a simplified and more efficient experience for our end users, while at the same time, providing them with enhanced functionality. We also knew that we needed a solution that was easier to administer and customise on the fly by IT staff, who were not programmers, to eliminate change request bottlenecks that tended to occur with our existing in-house offering. - Keith Schultz, Director of IT at Brown Rudnick

Solution

Though the firm evaluated several different solutions, BigHand Document Creation stood out above the rest based on its ease of use and the fact that there was no need for an on-site programmer. Because administrators don’t need advanced development knowledge to make changes or maintain the BigHand Document Creation environment, it provides maximum flexibility and best use of resources while offering powerful and time-saving features to both end users and IT staff. Keith Schultz, Director of IT at Brown Rudnick comments:

We took an in-depth look at several solutions on the market and found that BigHand Document Creation was the best fit for us. It came down to the fact that BigHand Document Creation gave us the administrative flexibility that we were looking for along with an ability to quickly introduce new features and efficiencies to our end users. This, along with an attractive cost of ownership, made it an easy choice for us.

To ensure the implementation process went smoothly, users were asked which tools in Word they most frequently used in order to see which ones would continue to be deployed, and an inventory of their current toolbar in Word was taken.

Following successful implementation in the US, the firm decided to complete the firm-wide roll out in the London office.

Benefits of BigHand Document Creation

The benefits of BigHand Document Creation became apparent as soon as the software was made available to Brown Rudnick’s users. The BigHand Document Creation solution was well received and resulted in a significant increase in workflow.

From the beginning of the project, all employees were able to take advantage of all the features BigHand Document Creation had to offer. In time, more and more departments started requesting to have templates created for forms like engagement letters, expense reimbursement, marketing presentations and office specific letters and memos.

Leveraging the input of the entire firm has culminated in better results, to the advantage of clients. The firm’s users are now able to access their documents more easily and are benefiting from increased consistency.

Users continue to value BigHand Document Creation for its easy adoption and the unparalleled support.

About BigHand Document Creation

BigHand Document Creation is a document production tool that lets anyone generate professional, house-styled Microsoft documents quickly and easily.

With accuracy and turnaround time being critical requirements, law firms must produce documents ranging in difficulty from simple memos to complex agreements, as well as disclosure documents and briefs. BigHand Document Creation provides a fully integrated system of templates that constructs documents with the click of a button.

BigHand Document Creation standardises the documents produced in a firm and significantly reduces the amount of non-billable time spent drafting, formatting and reformatting Microsoft Word documents.