About Richard and Richard, P.A. and Their History Using Worldox

Richard and Richard, P.A. is a seven-person law firm based in Miami, Florida. With three attorneys plus one of counsel, the firm specializes in complex commercial litigation and business litigation.

After years of not having a document management system (DMS) of their own, Richard and Richard, P.A. eventually adopted Worldox in 2010. Legal administrator, Gary Smith, was familiar with Worldox, having come from another firm that used it as their DMS: “We switched to Worldox because it was affordable, and I was already fairly proficient with the software.”

When the firm first went with Worldox, there were few vendors on the market, and Worldox seemed like the best value for the money. But after years of use, the firm started experiencing challenges. For Smith, one of the biggest drawbacks was the user interface. He notes, “Firm staff often had difficulty finding what they were looking for, primarily due to how information was laid out. It wasn’t visually intuitive or easy to digest, and some of the functionality was limited.”

They also ran into data storage and reliability issues, which caused headaches and calls to IT. Smith shared, “We had a limited amount of space and couldn’t send large documents without first uploading them to a third-party file-sharing program.” This caused the firm difficulty in storing, managing, and sending large or multiple files to clients.

A Welcome Surprise

A Welcome Surprise In October 2022, NetDocuments acquired Worldox and more and more firms were making the switch. It was the right time for Richard and Richard to explore NetDocuments. Comments Smith, “It seemed like NetDocuments would open up new possibilities for the firm.”

Richard and Richard, P.A. adopted NetDocuments in September 2023 with the help of migration experts at Optiable. After receiving onboarding training, the team began immediately noticing improvements to their business operations, with Smith commenting, “I’ve been a legal admin for 25 years, and this was the smoothest transition I ever had for any application,” said Smith.”

“I’ve been a legal admin for 25 years and this was the smoothest transition I ever had for any application.”

Gary Smith, Legal Administrator, Richard and Richard, P.A.

Smith also noted how much of a cost savings it was to move from an on-prem to a cloud-based DMS. “Worldox on-prem is a file server-based product that runs locally. Even if I ran it in a data center, it would be more expensive because you would have to pay the data center to update and maintain the program. But with NetDocuments, it’s web based, and I don’t have to stress about running out of disk storage. And it already saves us money because the ‘extra’ disk space is already built into the cost.”

Smith went on to outline some more benefits the firm experienced after switching from Worldox to NetDocuments:

• More Robust Document Management: As a world-class DMS, NetDocuments makes it easier than ever before to organize, find, and access vast amounts of data. “With Worldox, there was a limit to how many documents you could move at a time. You could have a flash drive of 100 documents you needed to import, but you could only move 10 at a time in batches. With NetDocuments it’s been much easier, and there seems to be no limit to the number of documents we can work with at once,” says Smith.
• User-Friendly Interface: Built with productivity in mind, NetDocuments’ user interface makes it easy for everyone to find exactly what they’re looking for. Smith explains, “The best way to describe it is engineered simplicity. NetDocuments makes it very easy to pick up on the functionality. Getting to your client matter folders or documents is very simple — just one click on a star and it’s there. The vast majority of the functionality is right there on the screen; you’re not clicking through different ribbons and menus looking for things. Even the home screen is amazingly simple to use.”
• Reliable Cloud Solution: NetDocuments provides an always-available, secure way to store, find, share, and collaborate on documents and email from anywhere, using any device. “The idea of having web-based access to our documents gave us a level of business continuity that we really need, whether someone is working from across the world or another hurricane affects the area, our team can log into NetDocuments via the web and be up and working.”

“It seemed like NetDocuments would open up new possibilities for the firm.”

Gary Smith, Legal Administrator, Richard and Richard, P.A.

• Powerful Document Search: As a cloud-based platform, NetDocuments eliminates the need for expensive on-prem servers or process-heavy indexers to provide you with the most current and searchable version of a document. “Now that our documents are in the cloud, we have confidence knowing that we’ll always find the most current version or correspondence, and NetDocuments’ search is extremely quick.”
• Simplified File Sharing: NetDocuments allows firms to always keep their documents within the platform, even when sharing with others. “Before when we needed to send a large document, we had to first upload it into a file-sharing program and then send out the link. With NetDocuments, you can directly send documents as large as one gigabyte, so that saves a lot of time.”
• Seamless Email Integration: ndMail by NetDocuments is a suite of email management and productivity tools that integrate directly with Outlook and Gmail, ensuring seamless integration with a firm’s email client of choice. “It’s a lot simpler to send documents via email with NetDocuments, as it gives us more options and it interfaces better with Outlook.”
• Time-Saving Automation: NetDocuments’ integrated AI capabilities and document templates help you save time and increase accuracy when creating common contracts, forms, and other documentation. “The NetDocuments platform identifies text and learns what your matters are so you don’t necessarily have to search for a profile every time. It can learn the profile you were using and automatically fill in information where it needs to go.”
• Effortless Document Recovery: As part of its robust file storage capabilities, NetDocuments makes it easy to recover data. “Previously, in Worldox, if you deleted something, you no longer had access to it. You would have to get an admin to pull it out again for you. But with NetDocuments, looking for things you deleted can be done yourself with just a click. You can run a search for something you deleted, select it, and restore it yourself without help.”
• Comprehensive Activity Logs: Track user activity within each document to monitor edit history and see when recent changes were made. “I think the Activity Logs in NetDocuments are very useful. You click on it, put in a range, and you can get what you need fairly easily without having to log into a completely separate application.”
• World-Class Security: NetDocuments’ built-in, award-winning security capabilities keep sensitive data and client information safe and secure while allowing for customized access. “The security is relatively easy to set up and limit who can view and edit your documents or make documents read-only.”

“NetDocuments is an excellent product, and if you’re a law firm that is struggling with profiling or keeping track of your documents, it’s a really simple way to accomplish that goal without spending a lot of money on hardware or training.”

Gary Smith, Legal Administrator, Richard and Richard, P.A.

The Firm’s Plans for the Future with NetDocuments

Smith was astounded by how remarkably simple it was for the firm to adopt NetDocuments. “The users picked it up very quickly. Normally you see some resistance to change, but overall the atmosphere at the firm was very positive. No one had anything negative to say since day one.”

As for what the future holds for Richard and Richard, Smith is confident that they will continue to discover even more benefits as they continue to use the NetDocuments platform. “I think that the longer we use it the better we’ll get at it. With some programs, the user can become overwhelmed by the menus causing them to avoid learning more features. But NetDocuments is just a very well-engineered product that’s simplified to the point where you can pick up new things particularly easily.”

Smith also had this message for any other firms looking to make a change to their current document management system, “NetDocuments is an excellent product, and if you’re a law firm that is struggling with profiling or keeping track of your documents, it’s a really simple way to accomplish that goal without spending a lot of money on hardware or training. It’s a good product that will for sure help you become more productive.”

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