Bradford & Barthel Deploys Google Apps to Change Firm Culture & Deliver Better Client Service

01 November 2010

ILTA Distinguished Peer Award honors and tangible ROI bolster firm’s bold change management strategy

Bradford & Barthel LLP (B&B), an industry leader in the aggressive defense of Workers' Compensation, Subrogation, and Employment, and Labor matters, recently completed the implementation and successful firm-wide roll-out of its Google Apps cloud-hosted collaboration platform.

The Google Apps strategy and implementation, which recently earned the firm two ILTA 2010 Distinguished Peer Awards, has led to a major culture shift resulting in increased knowledge sharing, communication and collaboration within the firm and with firm clients.

B&B had a real need to find more cost effective, collaborative, flexible and efficient options for communicating and sharing files and information trapped in disparate systems, in documents on desktops, and in a multitude of electronic communications. After weighing the risk management aspects of going to a software-as-a-service or cloud model versus the additional infrastructure and licensing considerations of a standard desktop upgrade, the firm’s senior management team opted to go the hosted route.

B&B's cloud strategy is based on a 24 month execution plan touching users' critical applications and workflows including email, calendaring, discovery, intranet, extranet, voice, video, documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Upon completion, the entire Google App platform will include a hosted document management system and unified messaging platform. B&B has already implemented the following:

• Hosted exchange (Gmail), intranet and calendaring rolled out firm-wide within 30 days in the spring of 2010;
• Google Sites has enabled client sharing using B&B’s Intranet and Extranet Platform;
• Google Video has been used to develop a video training program for firm attorneys and clients;
• Document collaboration is in place using Google Docs integrated with Google Sites to streamline departmental communication.

“Our firm has always opted to make the necessary tough decisions to not only gain a competitive edge, but most importantly, deliver more value to our clients,” stated, Donald Barthel, Partner, Bradford & Barthel LLP.

Industry recognition
To further validate the firm’s bold decision to move to the cloud, the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) recently honored B&B with its ILTA Distinguished Peer Awards for ‘Innovative Member’ (firm award) and ‘Knowledge Management Champion’ (individual award). The well respected technology peer networking association recognized B&B's leadership and willingness to champion firm change with the cloud-hosted Google Apps collaboration platform in order to expedite communication, as well as search and knowledge sharing, both internally and with firm clients.

“We leveraged Google Apps to accelerate our knowledge management and technology processes and create true value by integrating technology, strategic intelligence and knowledge management,” stated Eric Hunter, Director of Knowledge Management and Technology and winner of ILTA’s Knowledge Management Champion Distinguished Peer Award. Specifically, Google’s web-based approach to corporate email represented an entire shift from the firm’s norm, and is exactly what was needed to initiate behavioral change in helping us rethink how to search, store, and share information. Google Apps offers the most innovation, creativity, short and long term cost savings, as well as an evolving platform to continually anticipate and develop practical business process management needs for Bradford & Barthel. Although Google currently markets this platform as an IT solution for business, we view it as a KM-driven solution for business and law firms.”

Google Apps ROI for B&B
10 months into the initial Google Apps roll-out, Bradford & Barthel has realized various savings, resource reductions and streamlined workflows and process. Some of the most significant benefits include:

• Cost savings: In terms of ROI, Google’s annual subscription/per user pricing model ($50 per collaboration suite user and $13 per email archiving user) has provided cost savings of 10:1 compared to traditional licensing fees for Microsoft Office, SharePoint and law practice management software;
• Time savings: User collaboration, enabled via Google Sites, Docs, Email and Chat features combined with document sharing for video, training and web meetings, has amounted to major time savings and collaboration, both internally and with firm clients;
• Productivity boosts: Based on streamlined collaboration and smoother internal processes, firm staff has been able to produce work product in a fraction of the time and work with clients on edits and changes in real-time.

"Our newly created Knowledge Management & Technology Department’s savvy to identify and implement the firm’s cloud computing strategy powered by Google Apps has created a culture of change within the firm led by a new approach to knowledge sharing both internally and with our clients,” concluded Mark Fletcher, the firm’s Managing Partner in charge of day-to-day operations. “Beyond continued breakthroughs in bridging attorneys, departments, and clients together via cloud-hosted collaboration, we anticipate cost savings above and beyond the 10 fold reduction already realized. “