Benesch Law Migrates from Sharepoint to HighQ Collaborate

Benesch is a business law firm with offices in Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Shanghai, White Plains and Wilmington. In recent years, we had been challenged by collaboration issues between internal and external counsel at all of our nationwide offices. We began receiving consistent requests, especially from our Intellectual Property Group, to find a better solution to help solve this problem.

Benesch had been using SharePoint for collaboration and had endeavored to establish a custom-built intranet with a specially designed interface, but we still weren't achieving the complete solution our users wanted.

SharePoint presented a sandbox of tools that we were constantly digging through to try to help us achieve our goals, but it was primarily a document publishing and storage site ' not a true collaborative platform. Using SharePoint also posed a heavy administrative burden due to the many limitations within the system. As part of my responsibilities, I had to manage all of the SharePoint sites manually, which was becoming very time consuming.

We truly needed extranets to allow clients and other third parties to access select files. Originally, we tried to establish extranet sites using SharePoint 2007, however the user setup process was very difficult and SharePoint did not offer the flexibility or ease of use that we sought.

I knew that we not only needed technology that was completely collaborative, but was also easy to use and maintain for the entire firm. We needed a system that had a great user experience and one that would provide a seamless transition so we could continue catering to our clients' needs.

The Solution

I became acquainted with HighQ at a few International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) events and started a conversation with HighQ representatives about solutions to determine what the Collaborate platform could do for us. The Collaborate platform creates a unified space for secure enterprise collaboration between both internal and external users that uniquely combines advanced document management with enterprise-grade social tools. Its features include secure document exchange, client extranets, team collaboration and project management.

The more that we started to talk with HighQ about the possibilities, the more I realized that they might have just what we were looking for. We decided to set up a trial run for a few months with our staff members that had been requesting a better solution, including the IP group. The pilot group's feedback on the HighQ platform was unanimously positive.

HighQ Collaborate is intuitive, both from an administrative and end-user standpoint. We noticed that the more that our staff began experimenting with the system, the more the technology became ingrained into their daily routine. Creating a site was easy and transferring all documents over was fast and straightforward.

In my role, I work directly with paralegals and some attorneys, so I was able to get their feedback on HighQ before the implementation and rollout. One of the impressive factors that we collectively realized was that I was able to demonstrate the basics of the system and, with only that minimal training, they were able to take the ball and run with it. Attorney and paralegals could quickly set up sites in HighQ Collaborate. This self-sufficiency among lawyers and staff saved us all enormous amounts of time and did not burden our IT department.

The Result

Our instance of HighQ Collaborate now has about 40 sites set up that are used regularly. Our Cleveland headquarters and all other American offices are using the platform. HighQ hosts our system in its U.S. data centers, so it doesn't compete for space or bandwidth on our firm's in-house servers. HighQ regularly releases new features which, due to the cloud-based delivery, are instantly applied, and the service has been very reliable.

The HighQ platform is flexible and offers many options, which are presented in a way that is easy to administer and configure. We can easily pick and choose from the features that will help us most in our daily tasks. From the administrative standpoint, we can manage all the sites from a central dashboard.

Most of our attorneys are interested in using HighQ to share documents and comment on them as they collaborate. Generally, an attorney will request a collaboration site and will list the other companies and users that will need access to it. Most of these sites are created to facilitate sharing and review of documents. The key advantages that have been reported include: 1) ease of use; 2) ability to bypass Active Directory setups; and 3) cloud-based, always-on interface accessible 24/7 over the Web.

The integration with our Autonomy iManage FileSite DMS also means that we can seamlessly upload documents to HighQ Collaborate without having to save them to a shared drive first. This has made uploading relevant documents much more convenient and saves the user the time and effort required to get that pertinent information up on the site. At Benesch, we have FileSite working within the user's Outlook e-mail program. With the HighQ integration, a user may now right-click a document and choose “Export to DealRoom.” Users then see all the sites they have access to and can choose the relevant site/folder to which to export the document.

Our paralegals have realized both time and cost-savings from using HighQ's technology. For example, one of the paralegals reported that the HighQ sites help her and her colleagues cut costs spent on downloading PACER documents, which cost 10 cents a page. Paralegals were previously buying the same file over and over again even though someone at the firm had already downloaded it. With HighQ, one of the paralegals can download one PACER file and upload it to HighQ for everyone to access. HighQ is definitely a step in the right direction for our firm because it allows us to embrace new technology in a way that truly benefits our work.

One other benefit I particularly appreciate, having spearheaded Benesch's firm-wide green initiative, is that HighQ does not require any additional hardware on our end, which reduces our firm's internal environmental footprint.

Conclusion

Overall, Benesch has had a very positive experience with HighQ technology, and lawyers and staff from all of our U.S. offices are able to access the system securely with a user name and password. This has allowed us to work collaboratively with all of our offices and staff members. When we have had questions, HighQ's technical support team has always been helpful and provided quick turnarounds in getting the answers that we need.

The collaboration features of the HighQ platform have been the primary benefit for Benesch, which eliminated the problems that we had been experiencing with SharePoint and other in-house solutions. The technology has been a dream from an administrative standpoint, allowing quick setup, easy training and minimal maintenance. As a firm, we are able to use HighQ Collaborate in a way that works for us and the system has allowed us to continually and successfully provide quality legal services to our clients.

Benesch is a business law firm with offices in Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Shanghai, White Plains and Wilmington. In recent years, we had been challenged by collaboration issues between internal and external counsel at all of our nationwide offices. We began receiving consistent requests, especially from our Intellectual Property Group, to find a better solution to help solve this problem.

Benesch had been using SharePoint for collaboration and had endeavored to establish a custom-built intranet with a specially designed interface, but we still weren't achieving the complete solution our users wanted.

SharePoint presented a sandbox of tools that we were constantly digging through to try to help us achieve our goals, but it was primarily a document publishing and storage site ' not a true collaborative platform. Using SharePoint also posed a heavy administrative burden due to the many limitations within the system. As part of my responsibilities, I had to manage all of the SharePoint sites manually, which was becoming very time consuming.

We truly needed extranets to allow clients and other third parties to access select files. Originally, we tried to establish extranet sites using SharePoint 2007, however the user setup process was very difficult and SharePoint did not offer the flexibility or ease of use that we sought.

I knew that we not only needed technology that was completely collaborative, but was also easy to use and maintain for the entire firm. We needed a system that had a great user experience and one that would provide a seamless transition so we could continue catering to our clients' needs.

The Solution

I became acquainted with HighQ at a few International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) events and started a conversation with HighQ representatives about solutions to determine what the Collaborate platform could do for us. The Collaborate platform creates a unified space for secure enterprise collaboration between both internal and external users that uniquely combines advanced document management with enterprise-grade social tools. Its features include secure document exchange, client extranets, team collaboration and project management.

The more that we started to talk with HighQ about the possibilities, the more I realized that they might have just what we were looking for. We decided to set up a trial run for a few months with our staff members that had been requesting a better solution, including the IP group. The pilot group's feedback on the HighQ platform was unanimously positive.

HighQ Collaborate is intuitive, both from an administrative and end-user standpoint. We noticed that the more that our staff began experimenting with the system, the more the technology became ingrained into their daily routine. Creating a site was easy and transferring all documents over was fast and straightforward.

In my role, I work directly with paralegals and some attorneys, so I was able to get their feedback on HighQ before the implementation and rollout. One of the impressive factors that we collectively realized was that I was able to demonstrate the basics of the system and, with only that minimal training, they were able to take the ball and run with it. Attorney and paralegals could quickly set up sites in HighQ Collaborate. This self-sufficiency among lawyers and staff saved us all enormous amounts of time and did not burden our IT department.

The Result

Our instance of HighQ Collaborate now has about 40 sites set up that are used regularly. Our Cleveland headquarters and all other American offices are using the platform. HighQ hosts our system in its U.S. data centers, so it doesn't compete for space or bandwidth on our firm's in-house servers. HighQ regularly releases new features which, due to the cloud-based delivery, are instantly applied, and the service has been very reliable.

The HighQ platform is flexible and offers many options, which are presented in a way that is easy to administer and configure. We can easily pick and choose from the features that will help us most in our daily tasks. From the administrative standpoint, we can manage all the sites from a central dashboard.

Most of our attorneys are interested in using HighQ to share documents and comment on them as they collaborate. Generally, an attorney will request a collaboration site and will list the other companies and users that will need access to it. Most of these sites are created to facilitate sharing and review of documents. The key advantages that have been reported include: 1) ease of use; 2) ability to bypass Active Directory setups; and 3) cloud-based, always-on interface accessible 24/7 over the Web.

The integration with our Autonomy iManage FileSite DMS also means that we can seamlessly upload documents to HighQ Collaborate without having to save them to a shared drive first. This has made uploading relevant documents much more convenient and saves the user the time and effort required to get that pertinent information up on the site. At Benesch, we have FileSite working within the user's Outlook e-mail program. With the HighQ integration, a user may now right-click a document and choose “Export to DealRoom.” Users then see all the sites they have access to and can choose the relevant site/folder to which to export the document.

Our paralegals have realized both time and cost-savings from using HighQ's technology. For example, one of the paralegals reported that the HighQ sites help her and her colleagues cut costs spent on downloading PACER documents, which cost 10 cents a page. Paralegals were previously buying the same file over and over again even though someone at the firm had already downloaded it. With HighQ, one of the paralegals can download one PACER file and upload it to HighQ for everyone to access. HighQ is definitely a step in the right direction for our firm because it allows us to embrace new technology in a way that truly benefits our work.

One other benefit I particularly appreciate, having spearheaded Benesch's firm-wide green initiative, is that HighQ does not require any additional hardware on our end, which reduces our firm's internal environmental footprint.

Conclusion

Overall, Benesch has had a very positive experience with HighQ technology, and lawyers and staff from all of our U.S. offices are able to access the system securely with a user name and password. This has allowed us to work collaboratively with all of our offices and staff members. When we have had questions, HighQ's technical support team has always been helpful and provided quick turnarounds in getting the answers that we need.

The collaboration features of the HighQ platform have been the primary benefit for Benesch, which eliminated the problems that we had been experiencing with SharePoint and other in-house solutions. The technology has been a dream from an administrative standpoint, allowing quick setup, easy training and minimal maintenance. As a firm, we are able to use HighQ Collaborate in a way that works for us and the system has allowed us to continually and successfully provide quality legal services to our clients.