Legal

Customer Profile

A legal practice based in Lancashire which sends out requests for information to various companies such as insurance providers, doctors, and hospitals etc., as part of their claims handling process.

Challenges

The legal practice’s senior management team were originally looking for an alternative MFD (multi-function print device) supplier as its incumbent was delivering poor service. Its senior partner has had a positive experience of Skelmersdale-based Lynbrook at his previous employer and invited the expert print technology provider to its offices for a consultation meeting.

During the initial meeting, it became clear that one of the biggest challenges was inbound mail and how long it was taking to be delivered to the Fee Earners. On average, the practice receives 150 documents equating to 1,200 pages of mail in the morning. Two admin staff would sort the mail into departments, scan each individually, then rename the file with their Matter Case Ref. The next step was to search for the case in their Case Management System, select the document type and import the scanned mail. They would then notify the Fee Earner that they had mail.

A Time and Motion Study showed that it was taking, on average, three minutes per document, resulting in 7.5 hours per day spent processing the inbound mail – meaning that the Fee Earners did not get their mail until the afternoon.

Solution

Lynbrook’s document specialists visited the legal practice when mail was being received to witness and map out the process, so it could understand all the current challenges and bottlenecks. Lynbrook also conducted a time and motion study to help visualise the time spent, not only with the process, but how long it took the Fee Earners to receive their mail.

Lynbrook designed and implemented a system that automatically files the firm’s incoming mail directly into its Case Management System without any manual intervention. The system is agile to work with many document types and extremely reliable so that documents are not misfiled. For accuracy, a validation process has been introduced so that any documents that does not contain any identifiable information goes through to a verification process.

A proof of concept was developed initially, before being rolled out on a phased approach. Lynbrook specified two high speed Konica Minolta bizhub C751i MFDs and a bizhub C451i, which form a key part of the solution, featuring 300-sheet dual scan document feeders which operate at a speed of 280 pages per minute, resulting in the ability to batch scan the mail. This was supported by Konica Minolta’s Document Navigator Software (with three device licences), plus three days of Professional Services initially, then further development thereafter to accommodate an increase in additional workflows.

Benefits, Results, ROI, Future

The increase in the speed of processing has had a dramatic effect on the inbound mail and the broader operations of the firm. By adopting the new system, key benefits include an 87% reduction in the manual processing time per month, along with £1,950 per month labour saving. Additionally, the Fee Earners receive their mail within one hour of its arrival, avoiding delays and enabling them to complete tasks more quickly and efficiently.