Recently, Chief Platform Strategist at Thomson Reuters, Stuart Barr, chatted with four firms that use Thomson Reuters® HighQ (you can listen to the entire conversation here). Speaking with both seasoned and new users, they discussed how HighQ impacts their work as each law firm strives for productivity, collaboration, and new business in a competitive environment. Here’s a peek at that conversation.
HighQ is easy to use
Sue Marshall is the director of knowledge management at Buckley, LLP where they have been using HighQ since 2014.
They came to HighQ after a large number of case teams wanted to create extranets for their clients. After researching a variety of “off-the-shelf” extranets, they found that the vendors were challenging to engage with and the solutions were prohibitively expensive.
That’s when they found HighQ. They chose it not just because it’s cost-manageable but staff-manageable as well – meaning no external vendors were needed to set up each site, and no specific IT department was needed to maintain the platform.
“With HighQ, what we’ve found is that we’re able to create and manage our own extranet. We can actually spin an extranet off in less than a minute with a template. Our users rarely need any assistance. Actually, for the first five years we had HighQ, I was the only person at the firm supporting it.”
HighQ delivers ROI
“We had 12 weeks to deliver the project, and we delivered it two weeks early and below budget as well. So the client was really pleased. In one of our meetings, [the client] said, ‘You’ve shown us the art of the possible.’ Which, obviously, anyone would love to hear that from a client.”
That’s what Tara Walsh, client solutions lead at Foot Anstey, LLP had to say about recent new client business they won. She and Foot Anstey Partner Carol Phillips joined the conversation and discussed how HighQ helped them outperform an incumbent firm and gain a significant new contract.
Foot Anstey was largely unknown to a company that was looking for a firm to review about 12,000 documents and answer 75 questions that related to 3,500 leases. Knowing they needed to keep their pricing competitive, they were challenged by the sheer volume of the pitch.
With an internal team of 20 lawyers, Foot Anstey set to work on the pitch relying heavily on iSheets, workflows, and task modules in HighQ. The incumbent law firm, on the other hand, was utilizing Excel spreadsheets for their own data review. While the incumbents processed about one lease per hour, with the help of HighQ, Foot Anstey was able to average 4-5 leases in that same time – quite a significant savings in terms of efficiency. And it won them the new business.
“For us, it was a great way of bringing something to life and a solution to the client that they hadn’t seen from any of their other legal providers at the time.”
HighQ can help set up success
This year’s current events led Blakes to anticipate an influx of a certain type of business. Robin Porter, head of practice innovation and knowledge management at the firm, explained how they set about the business to create a space where they could gather external precedents and bring forward all the settlement agreements into one place.
They were initially going to use direct messaging or emails to share this information. Instead, they built and organized a collection space within HighQ where the students could add their information. Storing all this data in one space became even more important over time. While their initial outlook included about 50 different deals to review for precedents, their database has grown into almost 500. That number would overwhelm an email inbox, but thanks to HighQ, the data is normalized and completely searchable.
“For our lawyers, having something they can use, a really simple search . . . it felt like we were moving into the current century in some ways – of having these kinds of tools that people had gotten used to at home, that are safe and secure, that we can use at the office as well. And HighQ has provided that platform for us.”
HighQ has the right tools
Jason Yi, director of department operations at Polsinelli PC, only began rolling out HighQ to his law firm in the last few weeks. HighQ will be their primary data room for deals – a safe space for storing and sharing documents – but they’re already trying to maximize all of its tools and modules.
Some of HighQ’s most-used tools Polsinelli PC is already starting to incorporate include iSheets, data visualization, workflows, and task modules.
They’re also using HighQ to develop, store, and disseminate their firm’s research – both internally and externally. It provides their clients with one central location to find all their applicable research and allows the firm to manage assignments and leverage past work.
Want to hear the whole conversation? Listen to the on-demand webcast, How HighQ elevates law firm productivity. Better yet, find out how HighQ can help streamline the way you work at your own firm by requesting a demo today.
