Boutique Litigation Firm Turns to NetDocuments to Secure Competitive Against Global Market Leaders

Technology for Competitive Advantage

The sole activity of SLJ Abogados is the defence of client interests in civil, commercial, bankruptcy and/or criminal cases. Matters at the boutique litigation firm often run into tens of thousands of documents. Daniel Jimenez Garcia’s career with a top global firm makes him a believer of technology as an enabler, he had very high expectations of what benefits technology should deliver to his new business. “At my previous firm technology was a very important part of making things work well,” from the outset he wanted the new firm to benefit in the same way and experience the same quality of IT provision as a place where budgets are far more generous.

The firm considered the options; in several cases the complexity of the system or upfront hardware investment required ruled them out. They even considered general management software but, says Daniel, “We found this poor in relation to specialised document management software,” and he says, given the huge volumes of documentation involved in litigation cases, “the powerful search and retrieval capability of NetDocuments felt especially relevant for our scenario.”

After initial conversations with NetDocuments partner, Hoffbrand Consulting, Daniel also talked to the CIO at 2nd largest law firm in Spain – also planning a NetDocuments implementation, “They have 100s of lawyers, but actually their needs were very similar. I spoke to their CIO and I was reassured,” although he’s keen to point out his firm then moved quickly and were the first Spanish firm to go-live.

SLJ Abogados did the implementation and training with Hoffbrand Consulting, “Just 3 or 4 days was more than enough for set up and training, because it’s easy to learn and use.” The f irm can now have a new lawyer set up in minutes, “We will always stay a boutique firm, but we are growing and can add new users as needed. Our scale challenge will mainly be around the volume of documents we need to manage.” Since go-live, NetDocuments has been delivering commercial and operational business benefits, “I know we are saving hundreds of hours per week, it has been an extremely good investment for our firm. We still sometimes work on hourly rates, and NetDocuments saves us time to devote to progressing matters to the benefit of our clients.”

Cloud First

Daniels also wanted to harness cloud capabilities – all SLJ Abogados’s applications are cloud based, even though the legal sector has been generally slower than other industries to move to the cloud, “Firms were, and some still are, anxious about not having their documents on-prem. Nervous about them being in the cloud and the backup situation.” SLJ Abogados put their trust in the NetDocuments Cloud platform because, “I realised that the NetDocuments platform is totally secure. More secure than a server platform, less exposed to hacking.”

The integration between NetDocuments and Microsoft Office 365 was also a big win at the firm, “We can open and save email, it’s perfect and important because we use both platforms everyday so the integration makes our work much more efficient.”

The firm acts for the Spanish operations of many international clients and having NetDocuments is a real differentiator, helping win clients, “For example our clients now demand real time access to their matters – we can provide this easily. They don’t need to call or write in with a request, they can do it directly,” the team can collaborate with clients more easily and progress matters at a faster pace. This self-service capability, Daniel says, “erases frustration and it’s easy to convince clients to use because it’s so user friendly.

“We are saving hundreds of hours per week; it has been an extremely good investment for our firm.”

Daniel Jimenez Garcia, SLJ Abogados

Document Management Powerhouse

“NetDocuments is a powerful platform for firms of every size. We achieved our goal, to compete with large firm technology, that’s what I wanted.” He’s right and in addition Daniels says that NetDocuments has ensured the firm can easily manage the massive volume of documents they deal with, “It would be impossible without a very powerful system, the NetDocuments search capability – not just the file name but what’s inside, it’s akin to e-discovery software. That’s what we need.” SLJ Abogados also appreciate the NetDocuments strategy of continuous platform improvement and the firm recently took on ndThread, “We’re a Madrid boutique firm so internal communications are easy but we work with many large international organisations and stakeholders, ndThreads is very useful because it makes collaboration outside of our organisation fast and easy.”

Led from the top, everyone has embraced NetDocuments, “They use it gladly because it’s the easiest way to work,” and for Daniel’s team there’s no doubt that the firm’s document management has improved to the benefit of the firm and their clients, “Matters are very well organised, we find things very quickly, so we save a lot of time. Support is great, the response to any problem is prompt. Any firm big or small can benefit from NetDocuments, it brings great change and improvement for document management. NetDocuments has been the best technology decision I have made as MD.”

The Benefits

• Match technology power of large firm competitors for competitive advantage
• Powerful and sophisticated search capability akin to e-Discovery software means lawyers can find documents quickly and easily
• SaaS model enables low cost of entry and scalability
• Hundreds of fee earner hours saved per week
• Increased productivity through Microsoft Office 365 integration
• Improved inter-firm collaboration through ndThread
• Secure and robust Cloud environment
• Improved client service through real time matter access for clients

“Our work would be impossible without a very powerful system, The NetDocuments search capability – not just the file name but what’s inside, it’s akin to e-discovery software. That’s what we need.”

Daniel Jimenez Garcia, SLJ Abogados

About SLJ Abogados

SLJ Abogados support clients throughout the entire case, involved as if the problem is their own and with no other purpose than that of defending our client’s interests in court and during any negotiations. They are experts at complex and international matters and experienced at working with firms and lawyers in other jurisdictions and within other specialties.

About Hoffbrand Consulting

Founded in 2009, Hoffbrand Consulting is a certified implementation partner for NetDocuments and provides an open, honest and valuable consulting service to law firms and at a reasonable cost. For over a decade Hoffbrand Consulting has successfully implemented NetDocuments at firms of all shapes and sizes across Europe and the Middle East. Their defining ethos – keep it simple but provide the highest level of service and support available – applies to each and every implementation.

“The NetDocuments platform is totally secure. More secure than a server platform, less exposed to hacking. ”

Daniel Jimenez Garcia, SLJ Abogados

To learn more about NetDocuments and how you can work smarter with an intelligent document management system, click here to request a personalized demo.