Peer to Peer Magazine

84 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | FALL 2016 supporting an emerging technology company, including documents, people and finance. One of the advantages of these dashboards is that we can quickly answer client questions –– everything from the details of the latest stock plan to when a particular board member's term expires. We even built in an alerting system that lets us know when critical information is missing. Mike (SF): LawBase is a SQL server on the back end and a .NET-developed application, so it is very customizable for maer management. Beyond maer management, we use the system for helpdesk ticketing and as our time system. Vanessa (LD): Working in a corporate environment means we're continuously geing creative. We support internal business units in multiple ways, through contracts and transactions, and we have a customized tool that allows us to capture information that's important to our business units. Chris (LF): Our business intelligence tool Who picks the tools to use? Chris (LF): It's a team decision on what tools we use. We first determine what goals and vision we want to achieve, and then we define how we want to implement the tool (or process). We bring in stakeholders from the case and review suggestions and feedback from aorneys and paralegals, and then we decide on the right solution. Vanessa (LD): Our steering team, comprising different members of the legal department (including representatives from transaction and corporate teams), made sure each member within our department had a voice when selecting the maer management system. We had representatives from network architecture, security, application support and IT to cover all our bases and deliver something that would work well within our environment. We also wanted our maer management system to automate and improve our invoice process, so finance weighed in on what would be helpful to them and what process flow might work well. We had a large team, but that helped the legal department and the corporation as a whole select the right tool for our environment. Cindy (MF): Our tools are determined by a combination of knowledge management, IT and our lawyers. With our CaseStream technology, the KM team did an extensive needs analysis, and we made recommendations based on lots of lawyer and staff feedback. Mike (SF): For us, it varies. When we signed on with LawBase, we reviewed several options and worked with a group of key paralegals and partners. More oen, the officer manager and I decide which tools will be used to manage maers. Is your organization using a current tool in a creative way? Cindy (MF): We have goen creative in several ways. With CaseStream, we completed a process mapping exercise, focusing on everything that goes into efficient case management. It was a unique way to focus the project and define how to use the technology tools. Another creative example is our client dashboards, which help organize all aspects of Managing Maers Effectively ASK THE EXPERT CHRISTOPHER ACOSTA Christopher Acosta is the Director of Practice Support at Nossaman LLP in Los Angeles. He consults with the firm's practice groups and their clients on technical and strategic issues regarding electronic discovery, data governance and efficiencies in legal project management. He is responsible for the firmwide coordination and promotion of practice technology, identification and evaluation of new practice technology products and services, and practice support staff management. Chris built the firm's first litigation support department, establishing standard protocols and procedures. Contact him at acosta@nossaman.com. MIKE FISCHER Mike Fischer is the Director of Information Services at Schlichter Bogard & Denton LLP. He oversees all aspects of the firm's technology services, including the firm's litigation support department, a leading group in plaintiff's e-discovery and practice management. Mike coordinates technology and practice support applications and workflows for large- scale plaintiff matters among partner firms and supervises the delivery of plaintiff technology to matter-wide attorneys and staff. Contact him at mfischer@uselaws.com.

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