Boies, Schiller & Flexner Increases Control, Productivity with Captaris RightFax
OVERVIEW
Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP (www.bsfllp.com) specializes in commercial litigation and international arbitration. With 170 lawyers and more than 470 employees total,
the Firm also represents corporate clients and financial institutions in significant merger and acquisition and project financing
transactions.
While the Firm maintains headquarters in New York, it manages 13 locations across the U.S., including offices in California,
Florida, New Hampshire, New York and Washington, D.C. Among its clientele: CBS, Dupont, Ernst & Young, Miller Brewing, Napster,
New York Yankees Philip Morris, Qwest Communications, Siemens Westinghouse, and other enterprise organizations.
THE CHALLENGE
“It was insanity.” Strong, emotion-filled words accompany Mike Flanagan’s description of the Firm’s previous manual fax system.
As Managing Clerk in the Boies, Schiller & Flexner Armonk headquarters office, Flanagan is responsible to ensure attorneys
receive pleadings and other documents quickly and copies are stored in a central, accessible location.
Flanagan elaborated, “Managing manual fax machines and paper faxes became a challenging process as our firm grew.” While the
Armonk office now houses 40 lawyers and 40 support staff, it grew to that size from just a few attorneys in the period of
only a year-and-a-half. “The office was growing exponentially while the infrastructure was creeping along,” Flanagan explained.
On average, the Armonk office receives hundreds of faxed pages every day. Recent tracking numbered inbound and outbound fax
traffic to exceed 211,000 pages over the course of less than a year.
With the manual faxing system, all faxes were delivered via two machines at a main number. “The machines were busy all the
time,” Flanagan said. “There were delays and people couldn’t get faxes through easily.” Like other law firms, Boies Schiller
& Flexner depends on faxing as one of the most critical parts of its communication process. “It’s the way we get information
and serve our clients,” Flanagan said.
Compared to email, faxes are more tangible and professional (with printing on letterhead) for use as exhibits and communication
for court proceedings. As such, many documents necessitate quick attention and distribution—requirements that, especially
through a manual process—are extensive and time-consuming.
Flanagan illustrated: “Each paralegal spent half their time just handling faxes. They had to monitor the paper fax machine,
check distribution lists, then re-fax the document to several other lawyers at various locations.” Sometimes, Flanagan related,
this would mean receiving a 100-page fax and immediately turning around to re-fax 100 pages to several contacts—a process
he described as a “nightmare.”
Document management also involved making several copies for distribution within the office itself and for storage in the filing
system. Besides copying faxes for transmittal or mailing to other offices, “We finally had to hire a messenger to run back
and forth between the two Armonk buildings to deliver paper copies,” Flanagan said.
Storing and finding hard copies in the file room was a challenge in itself. One recent case resulted in paperwork filling
more than 600 boxes full of documents. “It would often take 20 minutes to 2 hours to find a paper in the file system,” Flanagan
explained.
Since it is a common occurrence for files to be accessed and prepared for trials and hearings, retrieving files from stacks
of boxes added up to substantial productivity challenges and time delays for time-sensitive processes.
Still, handling of urgent documents is status quo in the legal industry, even after-hours and on weekends. Flanagan explained,
“It is common practice in the legal field to send or receive faxes on a Friday night that require a response by Monday morning.”
With a manual fax process and minimal staff coverage for evenings and weekends, the staff faced a hectic start to the workweek.
”We would come in on Monday morning to 300 or 400 faxes sitting on our fax machines,” Flanagan said. “Half of our day would
be spent figuring out where the faxes needed to go.” Unfortunately, in some cases, the influx made it challenging to meet
Monday deadlines.
Additional challenges accompanied the manual fax process, including complexity of capturing costs for reporting to clients.
“Due to the difficulty of tracking so many pages, we were not recouping the costs related to faxing,” Flanagan said.
In all, the firm wanted to take control of its fax process—doing so would lead to increased productivity and cost-savings.
THE SOLUTION
“RightFax was the end of the insanity,” Flanagan sighed. ”It is the best thing that has happened to the firm in terms of outside
software.”
When the Armonk office moved to a new building in Fall 2002, management personnel discussed possible fax solutions. “They
were thinking about installing at least 15 fax machines in the new space,” Flanagan said. “I told them my clerk’s office would
not be responsible for the machines. I knew it would be a ‘runaway train’ system going from two machines to 15.” He warned
of lost faxes and high expenses—upwards of $45,000 for the machines themselves along with hefty annual maintenance, long distance
and toner costs. Not to mention the “cost” of consistent headaches to keep the machines running smoothly.
In comparison, Captaris RightFax, the market leader in enterprise fax and e-document delivery, combines fax, email and Web
technologies to provide a one-stop, full service solution. Rather than sending and receiving faxes manually, staff members
manage faxes directly from their desktops as images that can be easily printed or electronically forwarded and/or stored for
later retrieval.
While RightFax is capable of assigning individual direct-dial numbers to each attorney, Flanagan appreciates the ability to
customize and control the system through a centralized fax number and location. All employees have access to RightFax, but
the clerk’s office handles most fax receipt and distribution, ensuring faxes are not lost; but, instead, quickly routed to
all team members.
The new structure is straightforward: From 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., all faxes are delivered to a main fax folder. The documents
are reviewed by the managing clerk’s office and distributed as needed. Through the electronic system, sending large documents
to several contacts is a matter of a few clicks rather than the costly process of printing hundreds of pages and running them
through fax machines multiple times to reach multiple contacts. “Productivity has gone up immensely for our department,” Flanagan
said. “Using RightFax, we save man hours every week amounting to thousands of dollars per year.”
After hours and on weekends, faxes are routed to a second folder. All employees have access to check and route faxes at any
time, though the managing clerk’s office stays on top of documents by alternating turns to manage distribution via laptops
from home. “There is no more staying late nights or coming in on weekends to check the fax machine,” Flanagan said.
In searching for a network fax solution, Flanagan reports, “I looked at other fax products, but always came back to RightFax.”
He attributes the effective system to RightFax features and expert consulting from Advantage Technologies, a leading New York
systems integrator.
THE RESULTS
Along with offering seasoned advice and several useful results, Advantage developed customized scripts to leverage RightFax
integration with the Firm’s Equitrac billing system. The integration provides the billing department a simple method to review
and itemize pertinent client faxing charges. “With the versatility of RightFax and patient, careful planning from Advantage,
every possible issue was answered,” Flanagan said.
For instance, Flanagan shares, when switching from a manual to electronic system some partners were initially concerned they
may not receive all their faxes. Thanks to an effective distribution process, “The same partners were overwhelmed the first
couple days because they were getting too many faxes,” Flanagan said. Then, the clerk’s office conducted training on how to
view faxes via email. The result: additional timesavings and improved morale for all employees. “Lawyers no longer have to
sit at the office to wait for a fax,” Flanagan said. “They can drive home, have dinner, and then simply check their email
to read faxes from home.” The accessibility also proves useful when attorneys are traveling.
Storing and retrieving faxes is also an easier process, as reported by Flanagan. “What used to take us up to two hours now
takes us a few minutes,” he said. “With the computer sorting faxes automatically, the difference is exponential. Instead of
running to sift through hundreds of papers, we can sit at our computers and organize or find files in a matter of minutes.”
This especially comes in handy in comparison to old methods of searching for lost faxes. “Now, with RightFax, we can easily
find electronic images of faxes and re-print pages that have been lost from the paper files.”
Increased efficiency and productivity have enabled Flanagan and his team to increase billable hours and focus on more strategic
tasks. “The first few years with a manual fax system the managing clerk’s office was really the paper-chasing office,” Flanagan
laughed. ”We were close to zero percent billable time since we were mainly conducting office support and administrative tasks.”
With RightFax, the team is accomplishing 30 to 60 percent billable time.
Because RightFax is so versatile and can integrate with a variety of applications as well as multifunction devices, Flanagan
said the company is always finding new ways to use RightFax. For example, while the Firm has not yet put the system to action,
it has integrated RightFax with Hewlett Packard 9100 Digital Senders, a solution for integrating paper documents into the
messaging and RightFax document management system. The joint solution will help the Firm transition to a paperless system
as courts do so.
Lastly, along with productivity enhancements, the Firm has increased cost recovery. “RightFax is a cost effective system,”
Flanagan said. “Since our users can use RightFax to assign client codes, it has helped us track and recover phone costs.”
In fact, Flanagan estimated, “RightFax has likely paid for itself within the first year based simply on this cost recovery.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Captaris is a leading provider of business information delivery solutions that integrate and automate the flow of messages,
data and documents. Captaris produces a suite of proven products and services, in partnership with leading enterprise software
companies, delivered through a global distribution network. Captaris has over 100,000 systems installed worldwide, with more
than 90 of the Fortune 100 using the company's award-winning products and services to reduce costs and increase the performance
of critical business information investments. For more information please contact us at: www.Captaris.com or 1.888.320.7778. Outside of the U.S. please call 1.520.320.7000.
ABOUT ADVANTAGE TECHNOLOGIES
Advantage Technologies is a leading value added reseller/systems integrator founded in 1996 and based in Armonk, NY. The firm
works to gain the trust and respect of its clients by understanding their individual IT needs and offering reliable, comprehensive,
technological solutions that embrace simplicity and usability in both form and function. For more information please visit
www.atny.biz.
|
