Legal firms work with a lot of confidential information. At the start of the pandemic, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG) had to transition most of its employees to a work from home model while maintaining business continuity to stay competitive in this space.
As one of Canada’s largest national law firms, BLG is proud to employ some of the most experienced legal minds in Canada and provides a broad range of legal solutions via a diverse team of over 700 lawyers, intellectual property agents and other professionals across offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.
Most organizations across Canada were forced to transition to a remote work model due to the pandemic, but for BLG this transition came at a time when critical projects were ongoing and client deadlines were looming. Due to the sensitive nature of the law firm’s work, they would also need to set up an on-site team to handle incoming mail and forward it to lawyers who were now working remotely. For additional security, the vendors would need to pass background and security checks, as well as complete ethics and security training. BLG realized that they would need a trusted partner like Ricoh to get the job done quickly and efficiently.
A few of the challenges that BLG needed help with were:
- Moving to a remote work model while maintaining business continuity
- Handling confidential documents in a sensitive manner
- Securely transferring files and devices while adhering to safety protocols and meeting client requirements
Ricoh adapted quickly to the needs of BLG. The team began its work within 24 hours of BLG offices shutting down and leveraged five pillars to smoothly transition BLG’s team to a remote work model, specifically, hardware, IT, outsourcing, off-site service and eDiscovery.
Ricoh also posted a team on-site to navigate the office and staff’s desks to locate documents. Depending on the needs of BLG, Ricoh delivered files via courier or digitized them for secure online distribution. Ricoh didn’t overlook a single detail to ensure that BLG’s staff would be as productive at home as they are in office.
Some of the solutions implemented include:
- Outsourcing staffing services for administrative and mailrooms tasks
- Digitizing all mission-critical documents within the first 30 business days
- Scanning and digitizing more than 1.5 million documents overall during the pandemic
- Assisting with the preparation, receipt, and delivery of legal documents
- Managing several physical, on-site virtual trials, along with several video conferences
For all the work where a legal certification was not required, Ricoh stepped in and got the work done so that BLG could focus on what counts – their clients and the business of law!
Partnering with Ricoh for Office Services allowed BLG to maintain business continuity as lawyers could handle cases from home while keeping client documents secure and confidential. The firm saw immediate financial benefits by leveraging this partnership with Ricoh. BLG surpassed financial targets during the pandemic as employees were able to be productive while working from home. Additionally, by taking advantage of scaling up Ricoh’s services up and down as needed, BLG also reduced operating costs by 80%.
Ricoh created new processes, as well as communicated them at a large scale so that the law firm would remain successful while everyone worked remotely. Want to discover how Ricoh can streamline your manual processes and help you better support your remote workforce? Click here to read the full case study.
