Leading Law Firm Fredrikson & Byron Implements Exterro Fusion for Centralized E-Discovery & Litigation Support Management
Integrated Platform Provides Litigation Support Staff, Attorneys and Paralegals With Enhanced Visibility, Transparency and Stand
Lake Oswego, OR - (Marketwire - March 21, 2007 ) - Exterro Inc., a leading provider of advanced technology to the legal industry, today announced that Fredrikson & Byron has implemented Exterro, the legal industry's first fully integrated e-discovery and litigation support management platform. By leveraging Exterro, the firm's attorneys and litigation support staff can at last manage all their E-Discovery and Litigation Support projects from one centralized platform.
According to Chad Papenfuss, Fredrikson & Byron's Litigation Support Administrator, "At any one time, our firm might have as many 50-75 people collaborating on more than 300 pending cases in a variety of fields. Exterro offers an integrated online platform to manage the entire spectrum of discovery and litigation processes. You can monitor progress, track costs, set and manage schedules, and evaluate vendor performance -- all on one tool. Exterro gives us all of this functionality 'out-of-the-box,' as well as a business process modeling foundation we can easily build upon."
About the Implementation:
Fredrikson & Byron employs more than 200 attorneys in four offices and services clients internationally in the areas of litigation, corporate and intellectual property, health care, real estate, and banking.
Expanding caseloads pushed the firm to integrate a variety of media -- including paper and electronic files -- into a centralized management system. Although Fredrikson & Byron developed a home-grown solution to address its expanding caseload, the approach didn't meet the firm's strategic needs. Instead it increased costs significantly, without delivering the features and functionality the firm needed.
After reviewing project management and collaboration products that offered point solutions, Fredrikson & Byron chose Exterro. Its automated, independent and scalable platform helps the firm to effectively manage its discovery process by streamlining previously inefficient processes. Exterro also enables them to set up repeatable processes, facilitate internal and external collaboration, disseminate information and establish dependable business rules and vendor pricing.
After implementation, Fredrikson & Byron experienced significant improvements in productivity, efficiency, communication and collaboration. Partners and lawyers can now quickly log into the system and use business intelligence functions to spot trends and anomalies and then format reports the way they choose. With just a few clicks, they can monitor all critical information in real-time.
By using custom templates, attorneys and litigation support staff now communicate with more consistency. They can also generate real-time reports on vendor performance and costs, and create forecasts and budget comparisons immediately.
"Before Exterro, we didn't know what we spent on our IT or discovery services, often overrunning our support budgets by 20 to 50 percent," said Papenfuss. "With Exterro, we finally have a standardized process for managing information, reducing unnecessary costs and eliminating wasted time. Because we're able to implement best practices, we anticipate achieving ROI in less than three months."
Exterro will be demonstrated at Booth #118 at ABA Tech Show in Chicago, IL, March 22-24, 2007. To schedule a private meeting, please contact Exterro at (312) 402-0328. More information on the Fredrikson & Byron case study and Exterro can be found at www.exterro.com.