Phillips Lytle LLP

OpenText™ Axcelerate™ has enabled the law firm to practice at the speed of technology with cloud-based hosting and a full team of Professional Services experts supporting the deployment. Hosting eDiscovery projects in the cloud has reduced the infrastructure costs while simultaneously delivering cutting-edge analytics and machine learning capabilities that dramatically reduce the time required to review and analyze large digital datasets that other law firms are manually processing. Meanwhile, the deployment is fully supported by OpenText Professional Services—freeing up Phillips Lytle staff to focus on delivering the highest level of client service.

“Prior to using OpenText, our law firm utilized an in-house, on-premise solution that was hosted by our own servers. We wanted to move away from that structure, because there are certain limitations to hosting data on our own servers in terms of what we can do, accessibility, scale, as well as, the hardware, expense commitment of the law firm, and upkeep and staff,” said Clark.

Standardizing eDiscovery operations on Axcelerate has delivered significant benefits across the board around four primary areas: Better tools, better results; Less hardware, less costs; Simpler management, simpler operations; Improved productivity, improved quality of life.

At the top of the list is client service excellence. In order to leapfrog law firm competitors that rely on manual process and outdated technology, Phillips Lytle turned to OpenText Axcelerate for its industry-leading toolset. Multiple forms of supervised and unsupervised machine learning are integrated, enabling Phillips Lytle attorneys to prioritize document reviews and investigations with cutting-edge technology to deliver top-tier results for every client—transforming eDiscovery into a competitive advantage.

Meanwhile, the deployment model of hosting Axcelerate in the secure, AWS cloud dramatically reduces the cost of ownership for Phillips Lytle. The firm does not have to purchase servers or processors, and they have access to AWS’ cutting-edge infrastructure to scale their capacity while only paying for what they need. Attorneys can securely login to Axcelerate remotely, ensuring that business can operate as usual even in times of global challenge.

Streamlining management and simplifying operations comes in two forms. The contract and agreement structure for Axcelerate OnDemand Subscription allows the firm to leverage its clients’ collective matter volume to lower clients’ costs. In addition, it eliminates the need for clients to rely on each client’s own data volume to negotiate costs with eDiscovery vendors. Instead of renegotiating with a variety of service providers for each case, a standard agreement cuts the time required to execute, and deliver by 95%. While other law firms are still soliciting bids, Phillips Lytle attorneys are already analyzing client data. In addition, OpenText takes responsibility for maintaining and optimizing the platform on the backend, further reducing Phillips Lytle’s management costs and ensuring optimal platform performance.

Bringing cutting-edge tools in-house has not only improved productivity in the obvious ways, but it has improved quality of life. Attorneys have the chance to work with innovative technologies to develop unique specializations in a rapidly growing and highly competitive field of law. Those attorneys are no longer spending hours coordinating with service providers and learning different tools. They develop expertise on a single platform across their projects and they have a dedicated support team ensuring that systems are optimized and routine tasks like data processing, exception handling, batching, and productions are handled by the experts at OpenText Professional Services. The teams are fully engaged and OpenText acts as an extension of the Phillips Lytle Team.

“When I became the eDiscovery and Digital Forensics Practice Team Leader, I started to think about how we might be able to standardize our eDiscovery practice. The more we standardized that practice, the greater the expertise level of our attorneys, and the better we can deliver our services to the client,” said Clark.

Phillips Lytle has built a competitive advantage around eDiscovery by partnering with OpenText. They were recently honored by the Rochester Business Journal as a top provider of eDiscovery service—an especially compelling distinction as the only law firm amongst a panel of resellers and service providers. Phillips Lytle plans to continue standardizing and growing expertise on Axcelerate, while continuing to provide, feedback to the product advisory council to help shape development.

“This product, and our expertise in how to use it, has given us an edge on other firms. OpenText has always been very accessible and very responsive, and I consider them to be an extension of the Phillips Lytle eDiscovery team,” said Clark.