Law firm more productive with print management solution

By SMBWorld Asia Editors | Nov 26, 2010

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Most legal firms scan, copy and print thousands of sheets of legal documents every week. In the case of Rodyk & Davidson LLP, however, this workload is multiplied many times over.

One of Singapore’s largest full service law practices, Rodyk & Davidson has a team of more than 150 lawyers that covers five core practice groups: Corporate, Finance, Intellectual Property & Technology, Litigation & Arbitration, and Real Estate. It represents a diverse clientele in a broad spectrum of industries and businesses, and maintains strong working relationships with key public sector agencies and leading organisations in the private sector.

In addition, the firm’s footprint straddles the region. Rodyk & Davidson has an established and vibrant regional presence, advising clients on projects across Asia. Rodyk’s regional practice concentrates on project finance, infrastructure projects, M&As, corporate restructuring, and banking and investment transactions in China, Indonesia and India.

With the size, scope and span of its operations, it is clear that managing information and documentation is a mammoth challenge for the law firm. To keep on top of its information and documentation needs, Rodyk & Davidson relies heavily on technology. Its strategic partnership with Canon helps the firm keep its competitive edge. To improve efficiency and enhance sharing of information within the firm, Canon worked hand-in-hand with Rodyk & Davidson to develop a customised solution.
 
“We went in as a team and examined every facet of their operation. Our aim was to find the most effective and cost-efficient solution that would address every one of the firm’s worry spots,” said Mr Alan Ang, Account Executive from Canon.

Problem 1: Massive Storage Costs and Slow Retrieval Of Documents
One of those trouble spots was the storage and distribution of hardcopy documents.
Lawyers have to keep abreast of the latest legal developments such as new rulings and laws. On top of that, in their line of work, Rodyk & Davidson generates a lot of documents such as contracts and precedents that have to be managed.

What this means is that a tremendous quantity of documents is produced every day. This makes managing the distribution and storage of these hardcopy documents a huge challenge. Further, hardcopy documents are both difficult and time consuming to retrieve, which means many lost hours tracking down documents.

Rodyk & Davidson needed to set up an efficient knowledge sharing system so that its lawyers could have easy access to the information they needed.

“As a law firm, information is our stock in trade. The amount of information we get, and how we manipulate and analyse this information is critical to our success,” said Mr Gilbert Leong, a Partner at Rodyk & Davidson.

Another challenge is managing hardcopy documents. These documents are scanned, OCRed and filed in the document management system for quick and accurate search and retrieval. This multi-step process was inefficient and affected productivity.