Interwoven Helps Customers Bridge Technology Gap Between In-House Legal Departments and Law Firms
CIT and Newegg.com Use Interwoven WorkSite to Increase their Corporate Legal Team Agility
SAN JOSE, Calif. - March 3, 2008 - While law firms have been quick to adopt the latest in collaboration, document and records management technologies, attorneys who move in-house are often shocked to find very little of this technology within corporate legal departments. At best, they are forced to use tools not specifically designed for the legal profession and at worst, they are forced to make do with rudimentary, home-grown applications. With budget constraints and revenue-generating disciplines taking center stage for most companies, the legal department is often left to fend for itself to meet deadlines while addressing the demands of internal constituents and managing their external law firms.
This situation is now changing as in-house departments become more vocal about their needs around compliance and records retention. "With corporate oversight and issues like email management top of mind for every company these days, enterprises are beginning to give legal departments the support they need to be more efficient and productive," said Susan Emery, Group Manager for WorkSite Product Management at Interwoven. "Based on our own customer ROI studies, Interwoven WorkSite can reduce matter lifecycle time by an average of 40 percent, and reduce litigation response time and effort by up to 90 percent. These are powerful metrics that can arm legal departments with the business case they need to demand better tools."
CIT Breaks Out of Home-Grown Solutions
CIT, a global financial services organization with over $89 billion in total assets faced a similar challenge, and had responded historically by building its own solutions.
"As a cost center, we have to be very careful about the way we spend money. In the past, this has sometimes meant developing in-house software rather than implementing a commercial solution-but this approach has pitfalls of its own," said Teresa Allen, assistant vice president and legal administrator at CIT. "Internally developed systems don't always provide the functionality and ease-of-use needed to be really effective."
Allen added, "With attorneys collaborating across multiple locations and business segments, we needed a better way to manage and share the content related to our internal and external clients."CIT turned to Interwoven partner Micro Strategies to implement the Interwoven Corporate Legal solution, powered by Interwoven WorkSite. Says Dave Prekel, senior project engineer for Micro Strategies, "CIT had differing requirements for specific groups within the legal department, attorneys versus paralegals, and internal versus external clients. WorkSite gave us the flexibility to address all of these profiles within a single unified environment."
Allen's team at CIT is pleased with the results so far. "We've seen a tremendous increase in productivity with WorkSite," reports Allen. "Attorneys can access and share complete content for their matters and projects from any of our offices, at home, or on the road without having to worry about connecting to a shared drive."
A document work list provides a shortcut to recently accessed items, and integration with Microsoft Office and Adobe allows the department's professionals to access, retrieve, and save documents stored in WorkSite from within the applications already in use. "Once we had the paperless environment up and running, CIT's professionals found it much easier to stay billable rather than wrestling with paper and searching for documents," says Prekel.
Newegg's Legal Team Reduces Risk and Legal Costs with Interwoven
One company leading this charge is Newegg.com, a growing e-retailer. "Our leadership was very open to addressing our need for technology once we discussed what was at stake and showed them what was possible," said Lee Cheng, general counsel at Newegg Inc. "Our team's biggest challenge was organization, access to files, and basic records retention. It may sound simple, but resolving these issues can have a powerful impact on a business."
Newegg is using Interwoven to deliver improved service levels to the enterprise by streamlining the end-to-end matter lifecycle, including email management and records management, from creation, management, usage, archival, and disposition. The solution is intended to help Newegg educe risk and legal costs, manage outside counsel to work effectively and efficiently, investigate and respond to disputes, manage compliance, and improve employee productivity.
After evaluating five different solutions providers, the company selected Interwoven WorkSite, a collaborative document management system designed specifically for billable professional service work like that of the corporate legal department. "Interwoven WorkSite is a very robust product we evaluated, and aides us in becoming a world class legal department," Cheng added. "On top of that, it had the most approachable and easy-to-use interface, so people would immediately begin using it with very little training."
Another growing headache for in-house legal teams is email management. With document management a bare minimum for efficiency, more and more legal teams are looking to closely integrate these activities with an email management solution. "Documents are only one part of the picture," added Cheng. "With Interwoven WorkSite, we can make sure that the mountain of emails we receive are tightly managed and stored appropriately along with relevant documents. This will make a huge difference in our team's ability to efficiently service our internal clients and to achieve the best outcomes in legal matters."
About Interwoven Corporate Legal Solution
ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Deakin University, Dolby Laboratories, First National Bank of Omaha, The Hartford, Masonite, NEC, Northwestern Mutual Life, Prudential, State Farm Insurance, Visa, and hundreds of other enterprises use the Interwoven Corporate Legal Solution and Interwoven WorkSite to reduce corporate legal operational costs, reduce enterprise risk, to simplify e-discovery and regulatory compliance, to securely manage documents, emails, and files, and to increase the productivity of attorneys and legal staff.
Interwoven WorkSite and the Interwoven Corporate Legal Solution give budget-pressed corporate legal departments an easy, cost-effective way for attorneys to access and share critical information and best practices, and ultimately archive and dispose of records. The Interwoven solution lets in-house counsel securely and consistently manage documents, emails, and scanned paper in unified, virtual files so they can respond quickly and effectively to any legal matter that arises. It gives corporate executives better insight into that information, no matter where in the world they are located. Attorneys can access and update files securely from just about anywhere using a laptop, browser or a BlackBerry device. Interwoven also makes it easy for firms to archive records and manage those archives with retention policies that automatically classify how, where, and for how long records are kept. The solution helps in-house attorneys manage the corporation's risk so they can get more work done in less time-and stay in step with the company's business requirements. Interwoven WorkSite offers seamless integration to Microsoft Outlook and IBM Lotus Notes to insure that users can easily manage the ever growing demands of email
About Newegg
Newegg.com is the world's second-largest online-only retailer, attracting more than 8 million registered users and earning industry-leading customer service ratings. Founded in 2001, Newegg Inc. posted more than $1.5 billion in revenue in 2006. "Those who know" - IT professionals, do-it-yourself computer enthusiasts, avid online gamers, students, small-to-midsize businesses, resellers and consumers - consider newegg.com their top choice for computer and IT products and consumer electronics. At its award-winning Web site, www.newegg.com, shoppers can compare a comprehensive selection of the latest high-tech products, view detailed product descriptions, pictures, how-to information and product reviews, and interact with other members of the technology and gaming community. Newegg.com is headquartered in City of Industry, Calif. For more information, visit http://www.newegg.com or e-mail public_relations@newegg.com.
About Micro Strategies Inc
Established in 1983, Micro Strategies has distinguished itself as one of the most innovative technology solution providers and a strategic business partner for premier technology vendors. As an Interwoven Platinum partner, and industry leader, Micro Strategies is at the forefront of architecting and implementing quality technology solutions with a commitment to responsive, client-first service. Comprehensive solutions are centered in the following areas: Advanced Infrastructure, Business Systems Integration, Business Applications, Enterprise Content Management, Security, and Business Information Management and Protection Solutions. Learn more about the company and its solutions online at www.microstrat.com.
About Interwoven
Interwoven, Inc. (NASDAQ: IWOV) is a global leader in content management solutions. Interwoven's software and services enable organizations to maximize online business performance and organize, find, and govern business content. Interwoven solutions unlock the value of content by delivering the right content to the right person in the right context at the right time. Over 4,700 of the world's leading companies, professional services firms, and governments have chosen Interwoven, including Airbus, Amnesty International USA, Avaya, BT, Cisco, Citi, Delta Air Lines, DLA Piper, FedEx, Grant Thornton, Hilton Hotels, HKMP LLP, Hong Kong Trade and Development Council, HSBC, LexisNexis, MasterCard, Microsoft, Samsung, Shell, Sky Italia, Qantas Airways, Tesco, Virgin Mobile, and White & Case. A community of over 25,000 developers and over 300 partners enrich and extend Interwoven's offerings. To learn more about Interwoven, please visit
www.interwoven.com.
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