Gilchrist Connell is a leading Australian litigation and disputes firm focusing on the insurance industry. With support from partner, Morae Global, the team migrated to iManage Cloud and upgraded to Work 10, before rolling out iManage Share and iManage Threat Manager to offer greater functionality to users. Today, staff are more efficient than ever, and the firm has achieved higher levels of security and compliance while freeing the IT team to focus on more valuable activities.
The challenge
Outgrowing on-premises infrastructure
Rapid growth and changing demands motivated the firm to accelerate its cloud strategy and simplify access to client documents.
“Our on-premises infrastructure was aging and costly to maintain,” recalled Kirk Rogers, COO at Gilchrist Connell. “We reached a crossroads where I was spending all my time firefighting instead of focusing on more valuable tasks like optimizing the user experience.”
Rogers adds that when you’re used to on-premises, it can be hard to trust that the cloud is secure, but making that leap of faith enabled the firm to achieve its goal.
The solution
Fast, secure, and scalable: moving iManage to the cloud
Gilchrist Connell already used iManage on premises and agreed it worked well, and they knew it would minimize disruption to their users to give them tools they were already familiar with. So they implemented iManage Work 10 in the Cloud as the single source of truth for lawyers, paralegals, partners, finance, admin, and the HR team.
The team took a phased approach to the migration to help streamline user adoption. Staff now enjoy a faster experience and enhanced features such as smarter searching, the work panel in Microsoft Outlook, and the document timeline, which helps with version control and reduces the chances of accidentally deleting or saving over a file.
Simplifying collaboration and ensuring compliance
To simplify collaboration, the firm rolled out iManage Share. Moving away from consumer-grade file sharing sites enables Gilchrist Connell to meet crucial regulations such as APRA CPS 234, which requires companies, particularly in the banking and insurance sector, to secure documents in line with the growing risk of cyber attack
“The great thing about iManage Share is that it gives us a higher level of security without impacting the user experience," Rogers commented.
The benefits
Freeing resources to focus on enhancing the user experience
The cloud migration has been transformative for Rogers, who now has a small internal IT team and has shifted his role from focusing on IT to focusing on business operations.
“No one has to work on the weekend anymore, and we are able to provide even better workplace tools for our colleagues," said Rogers.
Staff pivoted seamlessly to remote working during the pandemic, and iManage has helped them to work faster and more efficiently. Gilchrist Connell can also assure new clients that it has a robust data management strategy in place, can comply with compliance regulations, and its staff have all the tools at their fingertips to focus on client work.
Looking ahead
Gilchrist Connell are implementing iManage Security Policy Manager, to further enhance document security through user access controls across matters and clients. The team is also exploring use cases for iManage knowledge management in the future, as well as looking into how artificial intelligence can help the firm to automate more processes.
