BigHand Template Management gives law firms the power to streamline document creation and save time and money

The challenge

The 150 attorneys and staff at the Seattle firm is counsel of record national complex litigation matters such as the Opioids, EpiPen, Juul, and Facebook matters. At Keller Rohrback, 85 percent of the attorneys generate all their own documents, and legal assistants create on average 10 documents per day.

The firm was looking for a best-in-breed document templating solution that would make it easier for their attorneys and staff to generate professional legal documents without requiring lengthy training or changes to their processes.

Before Keller Rohrback invested in a new document creation tool, they conducted their own ROI report and cost analysis to determine how much money they could save. Their conservative estimate found that a document creation tool could save each user 5 to 10 minutes per document. The firm concluded it would save almost $1 million over the course of one year.

Evaluating solutions

Keller Rohrback initially assembled a group of specialists within the firm to evaluate template vendors and find the best tool for their needs. They surveyed all the firm’s legal assistants and developed a questionnaire to evaluate each vendor.

Every major vendor in the macro and template space was evaluated, and they narrowed the field to three providers. After demonstrations from each vendor, BigHand’s template management tool stood out as the best option to meet the firm’s needs. They were especially pleased to see how intuitive the solution was and the positive feedback they received from attorneys and secretaries.

The right solution

Like many professionals, the attorneys at Keller Rohrback generate much of their own work. It was crucial that the firm adopt a document creation tool that was user-friendly, compatible with their existing software and could benefit everyone at the firm. Unlike other applications, BigHand’s template management seamlessly interacts with MS Word and promotes the native look and feel of the parent software dialog boxes to promote efficient usability.

“The BigHand demonstration went over really well at the firm. We saw the product from an end-user point of view, and that made BigHand stand out. They have people who have done the work of a legal assistant before and know what their days are like,” explained RoxAnn Ward, Senior Software Support Specialist and Trainer at Keller Rohrback.

Since our roll-out, we’ve been impressed with the overall service from BigHand and the amount of feedback they take directly from us into the future planning of the technology roadmap. They are a dedicated technology partner.

Keller Rohrback needed a tool that would allow staff to make changes on the fly and would empower them to control their own templates. The philosophy behind BigHand Template Management is to give clients the ability to create and edit all of their templates without having to rely on the vendor for changes.

“The tool is very user friendly, so when the legal assistants need templates tweaked, I can do that here. That gives us a lot more flexibility to grow and to use automation to its fullest capacity,” said RoxAnn.

“Prior to using BigHand Template Management, we had a document assemble program that was similar, but one of the biggest drawbacks was that the templates were proprietary and we could not make changes. That part was very challenging. If a rule changed or a template needed to be updated, we would have to wait weeks, and many times changes were not made because it took so long. Being able to make changes ourselves with BigHand Template Management is a huge advantage.”

More recently, thanks to the reliability of BigHand’s Template Management, and ease of use, we have been able to maintain efficiency in our document creation while working remotely.

Key benefits of BigHand Document Creation

• Empower users to generate high-quality legal documents without extensive training
• Consolidation of existing templates and centralization of all firm documents
• Significant reduction of time spent creating and repurposing documents
• Integrates seamlessly with other tools as part of the wider document lifecycle

Productivity increased by $1M

When you compare the cost of time spent using native Word to BigHand Template Management, Keller Rohrback is saving almost $1 million per year. That is cashback to the bottom line.

The decision to choose BigHand Template Management was a no-brainer. It was hands-down a unanimous decision to adopt BigHand over every other solution on the market. - RoxAnn Ward, Senior Software Support Specialist