Fiona Donkin, Senior IT trainer at Scotland’s Brodies, explains how the Bundledocs solution has made the business of managing documents much simpler for a remote or hybrid workforce.

The challenges of working through the Covid-19 era have proved a catalyst for many a change at leading law firms – and at Brodies, the pandemic really highlighted some opportunities for improvement in the document-bundling process in preparation for cases heard at court.

Fiona Donkin, the firm’s senior IT trainer, explains: “Lockdown accelerated the trend of increased electronic working, including changes to how Courts could receive information. We had already begun changing how we created document bundles for court hearings, so we were in a good position to adapt and adopt these new ways of working from home.

“We had used other tools for creating bundles, but found they tied up the user’s computer resources, or struggled with very large bundles.” Bundledocs avoided these problems and streamlined the process, she says. “Bundledocs allows our colleagues to quickly put together bundles that conform to what the court requires without tying up their computer, allowing them to get on with other tasks while the bundle is created in the background. It is now the first choice for our colleagues, particularly when working from home, where bandwidth can be an issue.”

A further benefit is Brodies has increased the number of people equipped to pull these bundles together, which can allow for more agile resourcing. “Originally bundle creation was an administrative task, which only our secretarial colleagues could carry out,” says Donkin. “They needed special software, and the process was time-consuming, which could cause problems when a bundle was needed out of hours, or an existing bundle needed to be updated.” Now anyone can quickly create and modify bundles at a time that suits them, she says. “Our secretarial colleagues still create the majority of our bundles, but Bundledocs allows lawyers and others to benefit from the functionality too, whenever and wherever it is needed.”

FUNCTIONALITY IN FOCUS

And there are several aspects of that functionality that have gone down particularly well with users of the system. Donkin continues: “The ability to create templates within Bundledocs, for example for specific Court and other bundles, is a real time-saver. Not every bundle is straightforward, so having templates prepared in advance of creation allows us to fulfil the requirements set out by the court with ease. We were also able to build our own cover page to align with our brand, ensuring consistency and uniformity in design.”

Another area of very positive feedback, she adds, is the speed at which documents can be reordered and collated into a single pdf, with all necessary changes ticked off. “Bundledocs provides many tools to work with in preparing your bundle, including the ability to organise pages within a PDF, as well as accommodating late inserts. It’s a common occurrence that things change after you believe the bundle to be in its final state, and with Bundledocs there’s no need to rebuild the bundle when you have a to insert a page as it will automatically apply the alternative numbering and update the index.  All you need to do is a push a button to generate the update.” Annotations and redaction are also straightforward to introduce.

“Bundles take less time to create, and the hard work is done behind the scenes, with our colleagues able to get on with other tasks. We’re also saving a lot of time troubleshooting problems with bundles, as the system works the way we need it to first time.”

Indeed, the firm is now saving this time on all manner of documents. “The secretarial team jump into Bundledocs to pull many legal documents into a single rolling pdf ­– expert medical reports, for example. It’s quick and easy to do and you can create a professional-looking bundle in seconds.”

TIME FOR THE CHAMPIONS

Adoption is always one good test of technology success – and with all the process benefits Donkin itemises, this is understandably high. “Most of the secretarial team are using the tool, together with trainees and lawyers that need the functionality. We also plan to continue to encourage its use throughout the firm for other use cases whenever a bundle of documents is needed,” she says.

Training, moreover, is as straightforward as you might expect given the light work it clearly makes of document collation. “The user interface is simple and easy to use. That said, Bundledocs visited our offices to provide some training to our ‘Bundledocs Champions’, which was excellent and easy to follow. We provided materials in advance to be used as examples, so that learners could relate to the bundles generated at the training session. Bundledocs also collated answers to typical questions in advance of the session to assist the champions.

“After that we built some e-learning course content, and also used Bundledocs videos from YouTube, as there was no point reinventing the wheel. We have always felt really supported. It wasn’t just a case of selling us the product and then moving on. They have been consistent with their support from day one.

“Whether it’s support, feedback or training, Bundledocs is there with the solution. The team is always interested in our opinion and feedback on the product to enable them to enhance the software to fit our needs.  They don’t just pay lip service; they provide a real service.”

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