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Industry
Legal
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Headquarters
Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Keating Muething & Klekamp PLL (KMK Law) is a 125-attorney law firm in Cincinnati, Ohio providing a range of services. A few years ago, the corporate group at KMK Law was looking for a legal transaction management (LTM) tool to make their processes more efficient and provide an even higher level of client service. An iManage customer since the year 2000, KMK Law went with iManage Closing Folders based on the product’s ease of use and secure integration with iManage Work.
Founded over 65 years ago, the single-office firm covers a range of practice areas including intellectual property, litigation, real estate, and more. KMK Law prides themselves on their ability to provide the service of a multi-city law firm with the minimized overhead that one office provides.
The business challenge
Providing better client service
KMK Law serve as trusted advisors to clients of all kinds -- including public and private companies, nonprofits, and individuals. They strive to deliver timely, innovative results with minimized costs.
A few years ago, the corporate group at KMK Law was looking to remove inefficiencies from their closing process so they could provide an even higher level of service.
“There were the traditional challenges in the transactional work that our corporate group did,” explained Rich Wills, CIO, KMK Law. “Creating the closing binder and delivering that to our clients was time-consuming, and often lagged long after the deal was closed. It was just very labor intensive.”
Like most firms, KMK Law’s deals could be time-consuming and cumbersome--often taking weeks and even months due to so many variables. The manual approach to complex transactions also put them at risk of human error. These were critical considerations in the corporate team's search for a solution.
To make deal closings more efficient for both clients and attorneys, KMK Law began their search for a legal transaction management solution.
Products
- iManage Closing Folders
- iManage Work 10
Benefits
- Closing binder delivered in hours rather than weeks
- Simplified signature management
- More efficient deal closings
With iManage Closing Folders, we've gone from weeks or months before the client gets the closing binder to a matter of hours. That makes our clients happy and makes us look good.
The solution
Safe and secure integration with DMS
iManage customers since the year 2000, KMK Law were already using iManage Work and iManage Security Policy Manager. When it became clear that their corporate group needed a legal transaction management solution, iManage Closing Folders was a natural choice.
As Wills put it, “When we first engaged with iManage for Closing Folders, we were looking for…something that would be integrated with our document management system safely and securely. We looked at several products, but it just made sense to work with iManage Closing Folders because of the native integration.”
Furthermore, Closing Folders was an appealing choice for its ease of use. “Closing Folders really sort of hit a sweet spot of not being too terribly complicated to learn and use, but really doing the blocking and tackling that was necessary to gain the efficiencies from [a legal transaction management solution].”
Seamless implementation
KMK Law found the implementation process to be a smooth one since they already had the appropriate version of iManage Work.
“Because of the top-notch support [from iManage] and help we got implementing the product, it was very easy to do a little bit of testing, a couple of little tweaks here and there, and we're off and running,” Wills enthused. “That kind of implementation is a home run. It's easy, it's well supported, and really works the first time.”
280
users on the platform
2
iManage products seamlessly integrated
20+
years as iManage customers
Business outcomes
Easy to use from day one
Following implementation, KMK Law attorneys reported that Closing Folders was simple and straightforward to learn.
“The learning curve is very easy for our associates and others to understand what they're doing and how they're doing it,” Wills said. “The fact that we have some basic closing tasks and checklists as templates within the software makes it super easy to spin up a new deal, add a few tweaks, and add a few other additional steps that may be necessary for that particular deal. It's a plug-and-play, spin-it-up-as-we-go kind of thing.”
Closing checklists and signature management made simple
Wills says KMK Law attorneys are “absolutely wowed” by the functionality that Closing Folders offers.
“What we hear from our attorneys is that…managing the closing checklist in complex deals is so much easier with Closing Folders. It's right in their face, it's organized, it's automated.”
Furthermore, managing signatures is now simpler than ever. “When we send multiple signature pages out for signing through DocuSign, they automatically get pulled right back into Closing Folders, organized, and attached to the right documents in the right order. That is something that allows people to be able to…manage that process, something that was very, very difficult [in the past], and could easily be messed up in a really complex deal. ”
Clients see the benefits
The KMK Law corporate team has also been able to achieve their goal of improved client service since implementing Closing Folders.
“For our clients, one of the real benefits of Closing Folders is the closing binder at the conclusion of the deal,” Wills explained. We've gone from it being weeks or sometimes months before the client will get that closing binder to a matter of hours . That makes our clients happy and makes us look good.”
Looking ahead
Due to the benefits for attorneys and clients alike, Closing Folders will be integral for the corporate team going forward.
“We have three new associates starting next month in our corporate group, and they will be run through the training of Closing Folders right out of the gate,” Wills said. Furthermore, Wills reports that the rave reviews from the corporate team have the real estate team considering using Closing Folders for their more complex transactions in the future.
After 20 years with iManage as their document management system, Wills is pleased to be deepening the partnership between KMK Law and iManage with an investment in Closing Folders.
“When we think of iManage, being such a long-term customer…we think of quality products, innovation, and the availability of top-notch technical support, as well as being top-notch partners to work with throughout the lifecycle of our products.”
