Founded in 1979 by six attorneys, Winthrop & Weinstine has grown to become a full-service entrepreneurial commercial law firm that employs more than 100 attorneys and 200 total staff members. The firm offers a full array of legal services to the community, including litigation in the areas of business and commercial, corporate and transactions, legislative and regulatory, employment, intellectual property, banking, and finance. U.S. News “Best Lawyers” ranked 23 of Winthrop & Weinstine practice areas as among the best in Minnesota. Additionally, the firm was recognized in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal as one of the “Best Places to Work” for medium-size law firms in 2006 and 2008–2013.
Recognized by its peers as a leader in the legal industry, Winthrop & Weinstine keeps its eye on new technology for leveraging the firm’s future growth potential. In order to remain in step with the legal field’s ever-changing rules and regulations, the firm’s IT department is continually looking for new opportunities to streamline paper-intensive processes. When reviewing the current environment, it was apparent that better capabilities were needed to achieve greater company effectiveness, while maintaining the strictest of confidentiality for clients.
“At Winthrop & Weinstine, the clients we retain are truly the measure of our continued success, and they are the reason we strive to differentiate ourselves,” says Bob Olek, Chief Financial Officer. “A firm of our size requires leading-edge technological solutions that not only reflect our corporate vision, but ensure our ability to respond to clients even faster and more cost-effectively.”
Law firms produce a tremendous amount of paper daily—copying and scanning legal documentation are critical components in their workflows. To support Winthrop & Weinstine’s demanding, paper-intensive process and output needs, IT Director Craig Wilson had previously used an all-in-one, off-the-shelf program designed for fax distribution, e-mailing, cost recovery, and scanning. While the product proved to temporarily ameliorate the company’s daily workflow issues, the software lacked the flexibility to adjust and adapt to the company’s growing needs. It was specifically the level of customization needed to manage the large volume of legal documents processed by the firm that kept Winthrop & Weinstine searching for a more comprehensive solution.
Determined to implement a more secure print environment and make it easier to output documents throughout the entire firm, Winthrop & Weinstine’s IT department required a solution that would improve its existing technology, fulfill its needs for superior customization capabilities, and maximize productivity. The solution also needed to be integrated into its existing iManage infrastructure, one of the leading legal information management systems in the United States. As a result, Wilson evaluated different vendors and ultimately determined that Canon was the ideal provider to deliver a comprehensive solution that would not only reduce manual errors, but also customize document output for each unique court system’s requirements.
Partnering with their local Canon Authorized Dealer, Winthrop & Weinstine implemented a managed output and workflow solution consisting of imageRUNNER and imageRUNNER ADVANCE devices, imageFORMULA high-speed production scanners, and uniFLOW software, Canon’s output management solution. For Winthrop & Weinstine, Canon was able to provide a seamless solution that enabled the firm to attribute document costs to each client for cost recovery, as well as provide a means to facilitate the need for secure document distribution by e-mail and fax.
By combining imageRUNNER and imageRUNNER ADVANCE devices, Winthrop & Weinstine saved time and increased workflow productivity by scanning legal documents directly to the various court systems. On average, the firm would need to manage thousands of legal briefs (20- to 200-page documents) every month that were uploaded to various court systems in many states. In the previous environment, if a document were too large, it would be returned immediately. The document’s file size would then need to be reduced and resent to the court, requiring additional labor time. The new customized workflows output documents based on the specific requirements and restrictions of each system
The firm was able to make extensive use of the custom express e-mailing and faxing features on the device. To achieve the goal of document print freedom with enhanced security, uniFLOW was deployed so that staff could submit print jobs and output them, on demand, from any device on the network managed by uniFLOW. Additionally, Canon developed a connector to iManage with custom settings specified by the customer so that they could seamlessly integrate with the firm’s existing document management system.
Oftentimes, visiting clients need to output their documents while at the Winthrop & Weinstine’s office. To facilitate this, guests can log-on to an internal Wi-Fi network and submit ad hoc print jobs to the uniFLOW server. When a job is submitted, the guest is sent a job code via e-mail so the file can be printed on demand by an authorized user within the company.
This helps Winthrop and Weinstine’s normal print activity remain secure while providing guests with convenient printing as needed.
“uniFLOW gives us a nimbler infrastructure that adjusts—on the fly—as our firm continues to grow and expand,” Wilson explains. “One of the best examples is in regard to our output of legal documents to the various court systems. For federal court filing, you are limited by the size of the document and container of the document and what you can upload to each individual court system. With uniFLOW, you can scan as much as you want, and the system actually breaks it down into multiple documents to upload to an individual court’s file size requirements. Time savings from this particular customization alone proved to be worth its weight in gold.”
Wilson adds, “One of the best examples is in regard to our output of legal documents to the various court systems. For federal court filing, you are limited by the size of the document and container of the document and what you can upload to each individual court system. With uniFLOW, you can scan as much as you want, and the system actually breaks it down into multiple documents to upload to an individual court’s file size requirements. Time savings from this particular customization alone proved to be worth its weight in gold.”
Technology remains an important component to maintaining a law firm’s ability to offer client-driven legal services that maintain efficient workflows and protect confidentiality. It can also provide benefits in reducing costs, increasing document security, and providing control over access to information where and when it’s needed. Through implementing uniFLOW, Winthrop & Weinstine has achieved a technologically advanced environment that’s designed to support the firm’s future growth and increase overall productivity.
With Canon’s products and solutions, the customer realized the following benefits:
- Increased productivity by adapting the scanned document file size to submission requirements of the various court systems
- Implementation of secure and streamlined document distribution via scan to fax and scan to e-mail
- Ability to attribute document costs to each client for cost recovery
- Secure mobile printing (any mobile platform)
- Customizable device settings that allow enhancements to evolve as needed
- Significant reduction of manual errors through automation
- Reduction in IT burdens in regard to support and maintenance
“Since implementing Canon devices and uniFLOW, our law firm’s overall workflow efficiency has significantly improved, and cost recovery and assignment of related costs are now extremely accurate. Through our partnership with Canon, we have been able to uphold our reputation as a technologically driven leader in the legal industry, utilizing leading-edge digital solutions, while improving our environment’s infrastructure to respond even faster and more cost-effectively to our clients’ diverse and ever-evolving needs,” concludes Wilson.
