Your journey time to the iManage Cloud? Just four weeks!

Reading the papers and listening to the news, we are going through a tumultuous time, both economically and politically. The business impact on smaller law firms is likely to be greater than their bigger counterparts, who probably have the resources to ride out the storm.

Alongside this, the regulatory demands on smaller law firms are unrelenting, especially when it comes to cybersecurity. Law firms remain a lucrative target for bad actors, adding not just to the cost burden for cybersecurity, but also for data protection compliance and wider governance.

Worryingly though, often firms don’t even know that they have been compromised. Cyber criminals, who are cybersecurity professionals in their own right, have automated their exploits. They are polling ports 1000s and 1000s of times per second to exploit even the smallest of vulnerabilities in organisations’ networks and systems. And when firms do find out that they’ve been breached, it’s typically too late. In the event of a breach, the damage to brand and reputation is always far greater, and many firms simply aren’t able to survive such an event.

Is your data structured? Are your most valuable assets really protected? 

Protecting firms’ data is now even more difficult in a hybrid and decentralised working environment – particularly if the data is unstructured and spread across multiple locations – people’s Outlook inboxes, SharePoint, File Drives, paper files, Teams, Slack, and so on. Many law firms – especially those with under 50 employees – who haven’t yet either adopted a best practice document and email management system (DMS) and/or transitioned to the cloud, tell us that lawyer productivity and efficiency is being significantly impacted, which in turn has a bearing on the bottom line.

iManage cloud is the solution

Better technology. In a sector where time is money, a cloud-enabled Document Management System (DMS) is a business-critical application for the following reasons:

•  All data and content is stored in a central, securely accessible repository – there’s a single source of the truth. This includes case-related contextual emails too.
• The solution integrates with the firm’s Microsoft environment – so there’s no need to log in and out of applications. Lawyers can access iManage directly from  within Outlook.
• Increased ease  of collaboration – no more problems with version control, and information sharing is supported by easily deployed security policies.
• A personalised search capability – no more “reinventing the wheel” because no one can’t find the document they need.
• Safe and secure access – from any device, from any location and at any time – the user experience is exactly the same.
• Built-in security – complete with near real-time threat detection to mitigate and/or minimise the impact of an attack.

What are the main cloud benefits? 

With the cost of doing business escalating, cloud technology is a no-brainer to help reduce operational expenditure. With iManage Cloud, the most widely deployed DMS globally today, all infrastructure overheads – security, application maintenance software upgrades, and so forth are all undertaken by iManage; and application and user support, by Ascertus. The maintenance of the DMS is one business-critical application that your IT team can safely take off their ‘to-do’ list.

DMS in the Cloud – a game changer for Owen White

Owen White, a Thames Valley-based commercial law firm of about 25 lawyers has greatly benefited from iManage Cloud, contributing to business efficiency across the firm. In fact, Ascertus helped Owen White to adopt iManage Cloud during the lockdown in 2021 – and the technology proved to be a game-changer for the firm.

Caroline Cowley, Director at Owen White, says, “iManage is truly a game-changer for us. The efficiency it’s providing lawyers has freed up so much more time to enable us to focus on enhancing client service. This project has also put us on the path of a less-paper office. I recommend iManage and Ascertus to any law firm that is looking for a DMS. From our very first interaction with these organisations, our experience has been extremely positive.”

You can read the full case study here.

A promising future with cloud technology 

Despite all the challenges posed by the current socio-economic, political and environmental climate, it’s not doom and gloom. Firms can make changes to their approach to conducting business, to successfully navigate their way through difficulty and uncertainty. The pandemic has proven this – the law firms that demonstrated flexibility and agility in the way they operated, took the help of technology, and remained committed to their business goals, posted extraordinary profits in spite of a truly unprecedented global event.

If your firm is wishing to adopt a cloud-enabled technology for document and email management functionality, we have a very compelling offer – from start to finish, we can have your firm up and running on iManage Cloud in four weeks flat! Even a five lawyer firm can deploy the iManage Cloud. Our free guide gives you all the steps needed, download it here. 

We have helped many law firms successfully and smoothly migrate to the cloud, thanks to our well-honed skills, extensive experience, in-depth product knowledge and a well-oiled implementation machinery.