MinterEllison Predicts 42000 Hours Automation Savings

MinterEllison, one of  Australia's largest law firms, has automated its business process management system. MinterEllison, which has 3,000+ partners and personnel servicing government, private and public clients, forecasts that the new system will save the firm 42,000 billable hours in 2023.

MinterEllison developed a Best Practice Matter Management system using Appian. By integrating multiple legacy platforms into a single platform with Appian, MinterEllison has increased workflow efficiency and decreased operational risk, as the system ensures all matters are handled within their established service-level agreements (SLAs).

“Our old business process management system was ten years old and had reached end-of-life,” explained MinterEllison Chief Digital Officer, Gary Adler. “We wanted to use that as an opportunity to automate in a way that improved the efficiency of our lawyers and legal teams, lowered risk, and offered enhanced client services.

“The biggest challenge we faced in automating the system was migrating our teams away from a system they were highly familiar with. Using Appian, we’ve been able to create custom applications that are straightforward, with a similar look and feel to what our lawyers are used to, which has made the transition as seamless as possible.”

MinterEllison developed a Best Practice Matter Management system using Appian, a first for an Australian law firm. By integrating multiple legacy platforms into a single platform with Appian, MinterEllison has increased workflow efficiency and decreased operational risk, as the system ensures all matters are handled within their established service-level agreements (SLAs).

“Appian offered MinterEllison the flexibility to consolidate all the varied activities and areas of the business onto one platform, which we named ‘Beacon.’ After just one year, the new system had managed 8,000 legal matters, and in the 2023 financial year, MinterEllison expects it to manage 20,000 matters,” added Mr. Adler.

“We have measured that Appian saves us between 10 and 30 percent per matter, equalling up to 42,000 lawyer billable hours in the coming financial year.”

Enhancing the employee experience, improving workflows, and knowledge sharing were key requirements for the Beacon platform. The platform also had to simplify work, as a significant portion of lawyer and support staff time is spent trying to find the right content or information in order to execute a task.

“Instead of our lawyers having to spend time searching through multiple systems or speaking with different people to get the information they require, the Beacon platform captures relevant information and provides it to the person who needs it, when they need it. That means we’re now able to surface knowledge and information to the right user, at the right time, so they can perform the right task. That's a huge improvement for staff because they're not wasting time searching around systems for content or information that they need to do their work,” explained Ken Porter, Director, Legal Service Operations at MinterEllison.

Specifically configured to meet MinterEllison’s needs, the automated business process management system can be easily and continuously tailored as the firm’s and clients’ needs evolve in the future. Externally, the platform offers an extra level of service and transparency to MinterEllison’s clients, who can now access 24/7 real-time information about the progress of their matters via a digital portal.

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