Gunderson Dettmer, LLP, was founded in September 1995 by six partners with leading reputations in their respective practice areas, and today continues its growth by attracting lawyers of the very highest caliber. Gunderson Dettmer differentiates itself from competitors in a number of respects. By operating with relatively low overhead expenses, it is able to invest significantly more in the crucial areas of training, technology, systems, and procedures to deliver high-quality, value-added legal services on a cost-effective basis.
Gunderson Dettmer has always looked to technology to support its goals of efficiency and productivity, and its ongoing effort to streamline business processes keeps the firm in the forefront of technological innovation. With this in mind, the firm began to think about finding an automated solution to reduce the time required to perform a key business process: the conflicts of interest process.
Gunderson Dettmer performs the conflicts of interest process for each new item of business. On average, this process must be completed 2000 times per year. "While we were entirely satisfied with the integrity and results of our conflicts of interest process, we felt we could reduce the amount of time it took for our attorneys, administrative staff, and Conflicts department to go through the steps required to complete this essential activity," says Kathy Nahay, Records and Conflicts Manager at Gunderson Dettmer, LLP. "By eliminating the data entry and manual repetitive elements of this process, we could free up people to work on other valuable endeavors."
In the previous system, when an attorney was presented with a new business matter, he or she used Microsoft® Word 2002 to fill out a Conflict of Interest document with all the relevant information pertaining to the matter and sent it in an e-mail to the Conflicts department, which has two full-time Conflicts Assistants. One of the Conflicts Assistants would manually enter the data from the e-mail into the both the firm's conflicts and accounting databases.
|
Number of conflict
of checks per month |
2000 |
|
Time spent in
previous process |
4000 hours |
|
Time spent in
new process |
1000 hours |
|
Time saved |
3000 hours |
The Conflicts Assistant would then input search terms gleaned from the Word document and conduct a global search within the conflicts database. The search terms might include the names of people, partners, or companies involved in the deal. The search within the conflicts database would generate a number of "hits"—that is, data points in the firm's system that matched up to data points about the new business, such as company names, key contact names, or attorneys who were involved in other matters. First, the Conflicts Assistants had to review the hits one by one to eliminate any that were clearly irrelevant. The resulting report was then circulated to the associate who submitted the original new business request and then to a partner for final review of any potential conflicts. In the event of a potential conflict, in simple terms, the firm would give the client the opportunity to review the situation and decide whether or not to proceed.
"We wanted to collect and disseminate conflict check data more efficiently, but the solution had to work within our established workflow, integrate with our desktop applications and back-end databases, and require minimal additional expense," says Eric Rosenberg, Director of IT at Gunderson Dettmer, LLP.
Gunderson Dettmer partnered with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Allin Consulting to implement a Microsoft Office System solution that incorporates Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 and relies on the XML capabilities of the Microsoft Office InfoPath™ 2003 information gathering program and Web services. The solution also uses a Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 data repository, Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server, and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, which is required to run the InfoPath agent on the desktop.
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Figure 1: When an attorney receives a new business matter, from
either a current client or a potential client, he or she opens an
InfoPath form called the New Business Form and enters all the
information required to conduct a client/matter conflicts of interest
check. The redesigned form takes less time to fill out than the
previous form, and it gives the attorney the opportunity to collect
additional data that Gunderson's New Business Committee can
use in generating more business.
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Allin Consulting replaced the current Conflicts of Interest Word document with an InfoPath form (see Figure 1) for attorneys to fill out. The InfoPath form automatically validates the data entry and submits the data to Web services that integrate with Gunderson's conflict and accounting databases. A SQL Server database houses the data for tracking and historical reporting.
"Allin Consulting understood our needs and quickly took advantage of the technology to help us accomplish our goals," says Rosenberg. "During the development of the tool, Allin had a developer on-site three days a week and the project manager attended regular meetings with us. We are very excited about this solution and pleased with the result of our engagement."
The new solution streamlines Gunderson's conflicts of interest process to maximum efficiency, yet yields the same reliable results as the previous system. Now, instead of filling out a Word document when new business comes into the firm, an attorney or an administrative support staff member opens a New Business InfoPath form, enters relevant information about the client/matter, and then forwards it as an e-mail attachment using Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 messaging and collaboration client to the Conflicts Department, where it is checked for completeness by the Conflicts Assistant. All the Conflicts Assistant has to do is press the Submit button, and the form uses a Web service to create records in the accounting and conflicts databases (see figure 2).
The form also automatically captures key data to create a global e-mail which allows all employees real time access to new business data and affords a third "backup" to the conflicts process. At this point new business data has been entered into the system and everybody in the firm has had a chance to evaluate the new business and confirm they know of no conflict of interest.
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Figure 2: Gunderson's new client/matter conflicts of interest
process relies on the XML capabilities of Microsoft Office
InfoPath 2003 and Web services to route new business data
through the firm's accounting and conflicts systems with minimal
manual intervention.
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The Conflicts Department must now generate a Conflicts Report for review by the appropriate attorneys. With all relevant data already entered into the existing databases the Conflicts Assistant simply opens a second InfoPath form, enters the client identification number and presses the Submit button. The InfoPath form uses another Web service to derive the search terms that it uses to query existing data and generate a list of hits. The Conflicts Assistant eliminates clearly irrelevant hits and sends the form back to the appropriate attorneys, who now have to review only the relevant hits.
"InfoPath 2003 offers an unprecedented level of control over how we efficiently collect, validate, and reuse information," says Armienti. "InfoPath allowed us to automate the movement of data and eliminate redundant data entry."
Rosenberg agrees. "InfoPath 2003 is a cost-effective, minimally disruptive way to automate our client/matter conflicts of interest process. Everyone at the firm will benefit from having to spend less time completing the various steps of this critical task, and we can continue to enjoy confidence in our results. We ran the two systems side by side to evaluate the number and quality of hits they produce, and we are 100 percent confident in our new system's capabilities."
Gunderson is already realizing the value of its Microsoft Office System solution. The firm is improving productivity by reducing the time required to input data and distribute results to the necessary parties. And by reducing the time required to perform the conflict check process, the firm is lowering operational costs and freeing resources to be more productive in other areas of work. Gunderson is also improving system performance and responsiveness by eliminating several redundant steps in the conflict check process. InfoPath forms and XML help ensure that data is properly labeled at the source and integrated with disparate systems automatically, significantly streamlining the process.
"InfoPath enables our Conflicts Assistants to work much more efficiently," says Rosenberg. "They no longer have to re-key data into two different systems, or type in all the search terms. We also reduced the time required for them to conduct searches, print out and distribute forms, collate responses, and handle paper documents." Because the Conflicts Department is actually part of the Records Department, the two Conflicts Assistants are now free to help with the many other projects in that department.
In the old system, after typing the data into the two databases, the Conflicts Assistants would do a global search to generate the report. This involved going back to review the original Word document to generate search terms. With the new solution, the New Business form already contains the words or terms that would have been typed in, so the Conflicts Assistant can run the search using the Conflict Check form without any manual data entry. However, to cover all bases, the Conflict Check form contains a text box, in which the Conflicts Assistant can still enter additional search terms at his or her discretion.
"We found that after running the conflict search from within the Conflict Check form, the number of initial hits was reduced," says Rosenberg. "This is because we took a lot of time in the development process to ensure that search terms were derived in a manner that targeted the particular matter in question. So while a Conflicts Assistant must still review the list to check for irrelevant items, the winnowing process is much shorter."
Attorneys filling out the New Business form and the Conflict Check form are also saving time because the forms are easier to read than their predecessors and offer several different views of the data, which make it easy to evaluate the information presented. The Conflict Check form shows different classes of hits—for example, hits originating from within documents, client affiliates, or opposite affiliates—and those hits are easier to work with because there are fewer of them in each class. As part of the Microsoft Office System, InfoPath provides a rich, familiar experience; Gunderson Dettmer's employees can easily use the new system without extensive training.
"We had a multi-step process that was requiring too much time from our key resources. The Microsoft Office System allowed us to easily integrate several steps into one automated process. A primary benefit, quite simply, is that our attorneys spend more time practicing law," says Rosenberg.
"Everyone's time is important; however, the more time we can save for our attorneys, the more time they can spend practicing law and developing new business," adds Armienti. "We have had very positive feedback from our attorneys who are spending less time with the InfoPath forms than with the original process. That's good news for the bottom line."
Gunderson's existing system did a thorough and accurate job of identifying conflicts but did not give the firm a way to easily query this data for other purposes. The roll-out of the InfoPath based system allowed them to collect, store and organize additional data about their clients for improved market research, business development, and client outreach by the firm's New Business Committee.
Even though it may not be relevant to the conflict process, there is additional new business data—referral and statistical information that would be relevant to marketing—that the firm would like to collect during the conflicts of interest check. Because such information was not entered by the attorney using the original process with the Word document, someone on the New Business Committee would have to go back and ask the attorney for that information. Now the New Business form includes this kind of data, which is stored in the SQL Server data repository and can be automatically distributed through e-mail to interested parties for review.
"We see the InfoPath solution as a starting point for bringing better visibility into our new business information, so we can gain deeper insights and make better-informed decisions about generating more business," says Armienti. "We plan on developing a reporting solution to answer questions about our client base, the origins of new business, the frequency of repeat business, and how we can market ourselves even more effectively. We will get more mileage out of the data we are collecting in our conflicts of interest process. We are only just beginning to see the value of Microsoft Office Professional Edition and InfoPath."
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For more information about Gunderson Dettmer, visit the Web site at www.gundersondettmer.com/
Allin Consulting is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner that designs and develops enterprise-quality platforms and systems that provide the agility necessary to compete in today's fast-paced business climate. Allin's Technology Infrastructure and Electronic Business solutions focus on solving business problems. A proven track record, a solution approach that ensures success, and a highly motivated and trained staff provide Allin's customers with a dedicated local team that delivers creative solutions that are on-time, on-target, and on-budget.
For more information about professional services from Allin Consulting, call (408) 441-6900, send an e-mail to webnorcal@allin.com or visit the Web site at: www.allinconsulting.com
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