Pitching and Proposals Pitching and experience management tool for law firm marketing and business development teams

BigHand Document Creation is a template management platform that enables users to quickly create documents based on the firm’s house-style and brand, on behalf of any user, in any location and in any language or jurisdiction the firm may practice in.  It works across the Microsoft Office suite in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

Yes. The firm decides who should have access to either search the credentials database and/or produce pitch-related documents. BHPP can be configured to support Fee Earner self-sufficiency if required or restricted so that only authorised users can produce documents.

Yes and these can be completed by users in Word or PowerPoint, regardless of the user’s skills in either of those applications.

Yes. BHPP comes with a ‘Create from Existing’ function which enables users to select content from any document and place it into any of the firm’s BHDC templates. Therefore a legacy document can be opened, the body text selected and placed into a ‘fresh’ template of the required kind. This function also helps reduce the risks encountered when users repurpose legacy documents instead of starting afresh.

Yes. The firm can specify whether the information is to be surfaced in Excel or, if preferred in PowerBI or other application.

Yes. The ‘pitch status’ field can be configured to send a notification email whenever that status is changed to either ‘cancelled’, ‘won’ or ‘lost’ and can be further configured to prompt for required information as to why.

Yes. An expiry date can be attached to certain content, including CVs/biographies and an alert email configured to prompt the individual to review that content. The updated content can be routed via BD for review prior to being made live in the BHPP database.

Yes. BHPP enables users to produce a professional, on-brand pitch document into which perfectly tailored content can be drafted. That content can be anonymised and saved for future use in similar pitches if desired.

Yes. BHPP can assist in the production of directory submissions and significantly reduces the time to produce similar submissions for an alternative directory in the same year.

BHDC comes with a system called SmartPrint which helps to simplify MS Word printing tasks. It can handle pre-printed firm stationery, automatic watermarks, colour and duplex settings and printer tray mapping with just a few clicks of a button. This feature also removes the need to maintain an ‘email letter’ template since it can withhold those items (eg. logos, footer information etc.) which already appear on pre-printed stationery. Please note that although our templates can produce a document with ‘full page bleed’, if sent to a standard office printer there will still be an ‘unprintable’ region at the extreme edges of the page, giving a small margin of white space framing that page. When sent to a large-format printer or to an external agency, however, the output will appear as full page bleed.

BigHand offers multiple pricing options based on your specific business requirements. Pricing is based on the number of licenses your firm needs, your desired level of access to our features and how you’d like to configure the solution to best fit your needs. To receive a custom quote, chat to a member of our team here.

Yes! We have a dedicated team of software trainers to help get your teams as self-sufficient as possible, as quickly as possible. We also offer flexibility for you to choose what type of training you require and how much of it you need.

Yes. The database can be maintained by whichever team the firm appoints.

We provide support to guide your team in readying your data for upload and checking its validity. Some of your data may remain where it is, accessed by our solution.

No. BigHand produce MS Word/PowerPoint templates from the designs provided by the firm. We can signpost you to providers of these services if required and we work closely with your designers to help ease that conversion into MS Office templates by our implementers.

Yes. BHDC integrates with other commonly-found third-party systems such as iManage, NetDocuments, InterAction, Outlook, Microsoft Dynamics, Aderant and Elite as well as having connectors to custom systems. This means that users do not have to leave their application to make use of the information found in these systems and include it in documents without having to copy and paste or type it manually, saving time and reducing the risk of errors.

Yes. BHPP is compatible with MS Office 365.

Yes. The Practice can have templates in either Word, PowerPoint or Excel. Users will see a similar BHDC customised ribbon whichever Office application they launch. PowerPoint users can also have access to repositories such as slide, image and shape libraries which can hold pre-fabricated content for insertion into presentations.

Yes. The pitch tracking facility can be switched off and certain activities can be written to InterAction’s pitch tracking module instead if required.

BHPP is an on-premise solution, so all data is retained by the firm.

Yes, access to these can be restricted.

No. The database has a small footprint and can easily share space on a SQL server.

BHPP has excellent multi-lingual capabilities. Templates can be configured to generate documents in the appropriate language(s), including dual language requirements.

Yes. This is particularly useful for answering queries around the firm’s experience whilst out of the office or at networking events.

Yes. BHPP comes with a built-in Design and Admin tool which means Practices can take control of their own templates in-house without the need for programming skills or reliance on vendor or third party support. BigHand can also provide these services if preferred. Otherwise, appointed administrators can update the collateral database without reliance on the firm’s IT team or BigHand.

Yes. BHPP is extremely flexible and configurable. The ribbon can be edited in-house using the inbuilt Designer and Admin tool. Different versions of the ribbon can be seen by different user groups (eg. the Designer tools are only visible to the Practice’s designated template administrators). Some templates may provide a context-sensitive ribbon when launched, to assist the user in the creation of that particular document type.

Yes. BHPP supports filtering in the ‘template picker’ from which users select the required template. Therefore if, for example, HR templates should be visible only to HR team members, the picker can be filtered accordingly.

Yes. This feature is included as standard but can be switched off if not required. Pitch/proposal/credentials opportunities can be assigned to a pipeline and tracked through to conclusion.

Yes. There is no limit to the number of variations which an individual can have. They can, for example have a long or short form of their CV, one in another language(s), one for each Practice area in which they specialise, a formal and informal version etc. It is also possible to attach relevant testimonials and awards to that individual’s record.

We offer a range of options to improve visibility and communication in relation to the inception of a pitch document.

Yes. If required, BHPP can provide the user with a gallery of only those signatures which that individual is authorised to use. From this they select a signature image for insertion at the cursor position. Additional signature image auditing is also available, enabling the production of a report to show which signatures have been used, when and by whom.

BHPP is extremely flexible and configurable. It is used by some of the largest global law firms, meeting a wide range of requirements, from multi-lingual pitch/proposal documents to placemats, invitations, presentations and flyers, to name just a few. Please contact us to discuss how the solution may be configured to accommodate your specific needs.

Yes! You can read case studies from customers here.