Case study
Clarity across the litigation portfolio, delivered by HighQ
HighQ gives BLG visibility into litigation portfolios and lawyer workloads to improve client service and decision-making
Key results
- Gives client relationship managers transparency over progress and performance
- Empowers lawyers to stay ahead of important tasks and deadlines
- Enhances client service
- Boosts team collaboration
- Creates efficiency gains
Executive summary
Leading Canadian law firm BLG is transforming litigation management using HighQ — the modern, adaptable legal operations software solution that simplifies legal processes — to provide oversight of its clients’ case portfolios and create visibility over lawyers’ individual caseloads. The firm has a large disputes and advocacy practice and offers a wide range of corporate and commercial services, with specialties in areas including health care, energy, investment management, M&A, and public sector law. In a short space of time, its implementation of HighQ has improved client service delivery, boosted internal team collaboration, and empowered smarter business decisions.
75
Internal users
1
Firmwide litigation platform
0
Manual input
The opportunity: Streamline litigation management
A strong proponent of innovative, digital ways of working, BLG promotes effectiveness and efficiency across the firm. Room for improvement was identified in litigation management — communications were sent via email, information was stored in several disparate databases, and workflows involved a variety of standalone processes. For one of the firm’s health care clients with a large volume of litigation cases, the relationship management team wanted to see a clear picture across the entire portfolio and to deliver timely reporting. Meanwhile, lawyers craved better visibility over their cases, including court deadlines, matter progress, and next steps.
The firm wanted a solution that would increase transparency at both the supervisory and individual lawyer level, create more formalized systems, streamline workflows, and ensure lawyers were consistently working to best practices. It also sought to improve data collection and analysis and enhance team collaboration. Having seen demos of HighQ in action, Cindy Clarke, BLG’s Regional Managing Partner in Toronto, knew it was the right choice for all those needs.
The solution: A combination of capabilities
With the support of the HighQ customer service team, BLG built a custom application capable of managing files, communications, tasks, templates, and data all in one place. “We wanted to reduce email traffic, get better oversight of status and all the various actions, create a central file intake portal, and then automate outputs once we’ve assigned files,” Clarke explains.
“There were just so many different things we wanted to be able to do, and having investigated HighQ, I was satisfied it can do all those things without a whole lot of coding, unlike other products on the market. So, while of course it takes time to get everything coordinated how you want it, we were able to move forward quite quickly to create a solution that works for us.”
Initially used for one large health care client, going forward, there is interest in rolling it out across the firm’s other litigation clients — and across other practice areas, expanding the potential use cases. There are also plans to increase task automation, integrate HighQ into BLG’s document management and finance systems in the future, and to leverage AI capabilities, as they become available via CoCounsel, the legal AI assistant from Thomson Reuters.
The outcome: Improved client service and better business decisions
For Clarke, the anticipated benefits were apparent immediately. “Other features may come to the fore over time, but at the moment, the key thing is the ability for lawyers to get a snapshot of all their case responsibilities and their upcoming deadlines and critical court dates. To have those all on a dashboard so they can walk in every morning and easily get the lay of the land —that’s probably the biggest desirable feature,” she says.
The integration with the firm’s main databases, with automated data transfer, is also a major advantage. Information entered into HighQ is automatically pulled into firm databases, and vice versa, so that both are always up to date with zero manual input required. “The best part is that it makes the interface with all those required reporting steps and databases easy and accessible,” says Clarke. “Because it's all linked up, as you're completing fields in HighQ, it also automatically updates the data set. And so, then I, as the person responsible for overseeing everything, will be able to see exactly where we are at a big picture level.”
The ability to analyze the data in different ways across large volumes of cases — such as by outcome, type of case, or settlement amount — is also vital because it reveals new insights about the client’s matters, empowering BLG to provide strategic business and litigation advice. Clarke believes tech-savvy clients will increasingly expect their law firms to provide data analytics going forward. Moreover, data-driven insights help the firm see what is working well, or could be improved, within its own operations and thus make better business decisions.
ROI: Efficiency gains and enhanced performance
According to Clarke, “What I'm seeing is improved client service as we focus on bringing key deadlines to the fore and reducing risk. I anticipate that once we add more HighQ modules, we'll be able to do an even better job of tracking how we're performing against budgets and develop an enhanced understanding of best practices”
“To me, return on investment (ROI) relates to administrative time, and I feel very confident there are savings there. I also believe there will be ROI in staying on top of our deadlines and in having good, reliable data. That will help us avoid challenges and make sure we’re consistently doing a really great job".
The input from the HighQ team to help implement and train staff on the solution has been invaluable. “We had a wonderful team working with us. They gave us the benefit of their learning and worked with us to get what we wanted. And when we gave feedback, it was actioned promptly. I know that when we want to add additional steps and components, they will be there to support us.”
The willingness of staff to embrace HighQ was an early win. The application is currently being deployed on behalf of one client, there are approximately 75 people using HighQ internally. Focusing first on tackling the most important areas for improvement helped secure buy-in, while onboarding went smoothly because users found the solution so intuitive. Clarke adds, “HighQ has a very nice visual interface, and it’s great to be able to work on one common, easy-to-use platform rather than a multitude of systems.”
This bodes well for BLG’s plans to roll out HighQ further. “How you apply HighQ would be slightly different across the firm, but the concept is being very well-received,” Clarke says. “Our early adoption and regular use rates have been very high, and that sets the stage in a very positive way for us to continue to develop it and integrate it into every part of our practice.”
“What I'm seeing is improved client service as we focus on bringing key deadlines to the fore and reducing risk.”
Cindy Clarke
Regional Managing Partner, BLG
At a glance