Peer to Peer Magazine

14 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | WINTER 2017 BEST PRACTICES Liler's Approach to Creating a Case Management Technology Solution Building Consensus and Driving Change A few years ago I was leading a team to integrate more of our firm's case work into Liler CaseSmart, an award-winning platform launched in 2010 to more effectively and efficiently manage employment maers. Liler CaseSmart had recently added single-plaintiff employment litigation, meaning that cases would be staffed by larger teams working within the Liler CaseSmart model. Liler CaseSmart has long used an innovative staffing model that involves breaking out the various components of a maer and determining the best method to address each task, whether it is handled by They say that necessity is the mother of invention. But for Littler's efforts to build a comprehensive case management system — a sort of Holy Grail in the legal industry — invention was the mother of another invention. a shareholder, associate, ediscovery aorney, FlexTime Aorney (FTA), data analyst or paralegal or through technology solutions. This creates a need to ensure seamless coordination and collaboration among case teams, especially with FTAs who work remotely and focus on specific tasks such as brief writing, research, and discovery. As part of Liler's technology project initiation process, we form commiees to gather feedback from a cross-section of affected individuals. Coordination among litigation teams surfaced early as a key area of focus for the new Liler CaseSmart model. This feedback ended up being the genesis of one of our newest technology innovations: Virtual Binder. Virtual Binder is an internal litigation management network that integrates all of the firm's resources — including email, chat, document management and financial information — in a single-entry network. It streamlines Liler's internal processes, increases collaboration and maximizes efficiencies through automated workflow, beer communication management and individual dashboards for each aorney with relevant financial data. Building a First-of-Its-Kind Technology Solution As we always do when embarking on a new technology solution, we began with the critical question of whether to build in house or work with an outside vendor. We conducted thorough research and determined that an external solution that met our comprehensive needs did not exist. Fortunately, Liler's robust internal applications and development team was able to take on the magnitude of this project and build Virtual Binder from scratch. As we started to work with the IT department on the build, we quickly realized that Virtual Binder could be much more than just a case management system. Virtual Binder became a solution to the inefficiencies that come with aorneys and staff spending their days pivoting from email to chat to cloud-based storage systems to resources that track financial data in order to manage litigation maers and serve clients. The automated workflow also enhances quality and consistency by helping ensure that all tasks are captured and completed on time and that case teams are following litigation best practices and proper client reporting. by Sco Forman Littler's Approach to Creating a Case Management Technology Solution

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