Prepress
Law Firm Hunton & Williams Selects Open Text to Manage Conflicts and New Business Intake Product Functionality and Knowledge of Conflicts Management and Business Intake in Law Firms Key Factors in Decision
Wednesday 27. August 2008 - Open Text (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTC), a global leader in enterprise content management (ECM), today announced that global law firm Hunton & Williams LLP will replace its existing conflicts checking system with LegalKEY Conflicts Management from Open Text. Open Text announced the news at the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) Conference '08 underway this week at the Gaylord Texas Resort and Conference Center in Grapevine, Texas.
Hunton & Williams is a U.S. law firm with more than 1,000 attorneys that serve clients from 19 offices around the world. The firm receives high rankings in American Lawyer magazines AmLaw 100 and Global 100 lists, and maintains its reputation for pro bono work.
The complexity of the task of analyzing potential client conflicts and screening new clients and matters has increased, as has Hunton & Williams size and client roster. This growth and client expectations required the firm to enhance its ability to quickly identify and resolve potential conflicts. Likewise, this increasingly complex environment led the firm to seek out a replacement for its existing conflicts management system, which was a module of the firms financial management system.
“It is a fast-paced world in all corners as it relates to our firm and any large law firm. Lawyers are looking for answers, not data, and clients are looking for a quick response,” said Ed Hayes, business intake manager for Hunton & Williams.
“The firm has an experienced business intake team. We want them to have the best tools available to help identify and resolve ethical conflicts and sensitive business issues,” added Kelly Faglioni, deputy general counsel and litigation partner at Hunton & Williams.
Conflicts checking and business intake systems are integral to lawyers ethical mandate to avoid conflicts of interest, which contribute to claims and malpractice suits against law firms as well as motions to disqualify. These systems are also crucial to a firms ability to continuously evaluate and update legal business processes to survive in the global marketplace.
“After thoroughly evaluating the various solutions, we chose Open Texts solution. Based on our research, the program provides the greatest functionality and demonstrates comprehensive knowledge of the conflicts and business intake issues facing law firms,” said Hayes.
Providing more efficiency in terms of controlling both the report and results output, the LegalKEY Conflicts Management system is expected to enhance client service by streamlining the conflicts clearing process. Attorneys will spend less time looking through stacks of paper and email messages. Instead, they will be able to simply drill down on a results list to identify potential conflicts, leaving more time for them to spend on billable work. In addition, the advanced search functionality of Open Texts solution will make it possible for the firm to quickly evaluate possible conflicts of interest associated with current and potential clients, as well as with new attorneys looking to join the firm.
Hunton & Williams will also use Open Texts Core Services Layer to deliver enhanced value to the firms business processes. With Core Services Layer, Hunton & Williams will be able to effectively connect to the firms existing business intake systems and databases to simplify and eliminate redundant data entry associated with multiple user interfaces. This feature will accelerate new business intake and help the firm make faster, more effective decisions by enabling attorneys and support staff to work within an intuitive and familiar environment to carry out tasks associated with new business intake.
“We are pleased to add such a prestigious firm as Hunton & Williams to our client list,” said Mohit Thawani, Business Development Manager, Legal Solutions Group at Open Text. “We have a true understanding of the business of conflicts of interest issues and a commitment to providing our law firm customers with solutions that meet the changing needs of this dynamic market.”
Open Text is exhibiting at ILTA ’08 in booth #316. For more information, go to: http://conference.iltanet.org/
Open Text provides a full range of legal solutions that support law firms business practices and proactive compliance needs throughout the matter lifecycle – from client intake through to final disposition. Currently, 70 percent of the AmLaw 100 firms are using Open Text content management solutions.