Fenwick & West Case Study

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Case Study

Fenwick & West, LLP, a law firm specializing in high technology, was facing a pressing need to become competitive with the large national firms that were coming into Silicon Valley. Partners at the firm knew they had to find ways to streamline the efficiency of their operation. One change they wanted to make was to lower their administrative costs by reducing the number of legal assistants who worked for attorneys. Bill Fenwick, one of the firm's partners, was interested in investigating how the firm could transition to an all-digital system. His instinct was that becoming digital would significantly reduce the firm's overall costs that were currently going into handling the firm's voluminous paperwork.

Becoming a "paperless office" seemed like a compelling way to become more competitive. However, Fenwick & West had tried—and abandoned— a digital solution in the past. The firm hadn't been able to implement this system because their employees weren't able to incorporate it into the way they worked. Fenwick & West was left with questions. Why hadn't they been able to transition to the digital system they tried to implement? What issues were getting in the way of this? And, was there another way to reduce the overall number of assistants who supported attorneys in their day-to-day work?

Inquiry

Rather than proposing immediate action or solutions, Ricoh Innovations approached the project with an open-ended inquiry. A small team of researchers, including ethnographers, interaction designers, and engineers observed Fenwick's employees as they went about their work. We spent time with a diverse range of employees in different departments, including legal secretaries and assistants, docketing department workers, paralegals, and attorneys.

Our team discovered that one major, ongoing challenge the firm faced involved the sheer amount of unbillable time that went into storing, searching for, and retrieving paper-based information related to the thousands of cases the firm dealt with. It was clear that by finding ways to reduce this paper-based activity, the firm could free up time for attorneys and their assistants to do profitable work. Keeping in mind that the firm had already tried a digital solution, which failed, we also looked carefully at the actual tools and work processes the employees were using.