UK News
Bournemouth-based, full service commercial law firm, Steele Raymond, has selected Ascertus Limited to help the firm adopt best practice document and email management, with the implementation and support of iManage Work in the cloud.
This implementation is core to Steele Raymond’s IT strategy as the firm looks to future-proof its infrastructure and deliver the best possible legal service to achieve its ambitious business growth goals. Once deployed, iManage Work will be the central hub and “go to” application for all client matters as well as internal firm-related information, facilitating a paper-light, digital and hybrid working environment.
Elaborating on the firm’s business rationale for its technology strategy, Lee Taylor, Business Development Director at Steele Raymond, says, “We work with some highly recognised brands in business and typically compete and pitch for work against other significant regional and national firms. So, to maintain our competitiveness, we want to provide a work environment that attracts the best talent, and is conducive to high quality service delivery. The right technology infrastructure is core to this, with best practice information management in the cloud being among the most important capabilities. It will support hybrid working, and facilitate a digital and paper light environment, transforming our way of working.”
With all data stored centrally in iManage Work, lawyers will benefit from very significant efficiency and productivity gains. Accurate search and version control will become par for the course. Presently, matter-related data is stored in multiple locations including the firm’s network drives, practice management system and inboxes of individual users. With information scattered across the firm and the documents not carrying a footer, it is difficult for lawyers to know where matter-critical data is saved. Additionally, with no standardised approach to version control, currently identifying the latest versions of documents is difficult and time-consuming. These frustrating issues are common across many firms. In iManage, every single document will have a unique reference number, providing exact information on the version and where it resides in the system.
With iManage, lawyers will be able to save documents from their Microsoft Office applications, as well as emails from their Outlook inboxes, directly in to the document management system, with a click of the mouse. Presently uploading documents in network drives is cumbersome. Lawyers have to export them from the practice management system, save on their desktop and then upload into the client drives.
Yvette Moss, IT Director at Steele Raymond LLP, explains why the firm chose iManage Work, “iManage is the best-in-class solution on the market, and ticks all the boxes, not just for document management functionality, but also for the security, governance and compliance capabilities it provides. The application is available in the cloud, which fits in perfectly with our cloud-first IT infrastructure strategy.”
Ascertus is assisting and guiding Steele Raymond – from solution design and data migration through to go-live and user training. As part of this first phase of the project, Ascertus is also integrating iManage Work with Eclipse, the firm’s practice management system. Thereafter, Ascertus will support the technology, providing its complete suite of services.
On the firm’s decision to appoint Ascertus as the implementation and support partner, Moss adds, “We are only interested in partnering with suppliers who genuinely care for our business. And so, Ascertus is the only technology implementor who we want to work with. The team is very experienced in iManage implementations, but from the first interactions we had with the company, it was clear that they lay a lot of emphasis on good account management and relationships. Already, in a short space of time, we can see that the team gets our requirements a 100 percent.”
Post the iManage implementation, Ascertus will help Steele Raymond integrate other document management-related applications including Records Management, PDF management and e-Signatures.
Jon Wainwright, Sales Director at Ascertus Limited, comments, “Steele Raymond’s technology investment strategy is driven by their objective of providing a level of service that is at par with, if not better, than their largest competitors. To achieve this, they are focussing their investment on deploying the best applications available on the market, so that they have a strong and future-proof technological footing. It’s heartening to see that they’re taking a comprehensive approach to information management capability – rather than piecemeal. This strategy will deliver them the highest possible return on investment and facilitate their aspirations to compete and win against the best.”
iManage is the leading provider of work product management solutions for legal, accounting and financial services firms and the corporate departments they serve worldwide. Every day iManage helps professionals streamline the creation, sharing, governance and security of their work product. Nearly 3,000 organizations around the world—including more than 1,800 law firms—rely on iManage to help them deliver great client work. Headquartered in Chicago, iManage is a management-owned company.
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