Orchard Implements Hummingbird Enterprise(TM) to Support Growing Law Firm

Hummingbird Ltd., a leading global provider of integrated enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, today announced that Orchard, a London-based commercial law firm, has completed deployment of Hummingbird Enterprise(TM) for Legal, enabling the firm to offer its clients the most up-to-date and cost- effective delivery of legal services. The Hummingbird document management (DM) platform provides the firm with a single, centralized repository from which fee-earners can easily access and share internal documents and records, including e-mails and attachments, all stored in matter-centric folders. Using the client and matter-centric view, the lawyers can keep better track of all matters relating to a client, improving client service and potential opportunities for new business. Since most communication with clients is through e-mail, a key benefit for Orchard is being able to store all e-mails relevant to a particular matter in the Hummingbird DM system. With no formal document management system in place, Orchard needed to look for a robust solution that would support its future growth. The firm based its ultimate decision on several important considerations including finding a product that worked out of the box; required little or no customization; was user friendly; and could be implemented quickly. Orchard completed a full market review and evaluation of DM vendors and considered four solutions. After several months of evaluations, we selected Hummingbird Enterprise, because we were extremely impressed by its feature-rich functionality. A significant driver for us was Hummingbirds e-mail management capabilities, continued Jones. Being able to share e-mail by client team, to automatically save e-mails into a matter folder and automatically apply the security policies Hummingbird provides is tremendous. We feel that Hummingbird has delivered a solution that will grow with the firm. A two-stage approach was used for the implementation with Hummingbird consultants completing the entire project in 14 days. Two-fifths of the firm trained and went live in the first week, with the remainder of the firm completing training over the second week. Future Deployments Orchard plans to roll out Hummingbird Enterprise Webtop (Hummingbirds portal framework) in early 2005 enabling fee-earners to have access to the firms knowledge assets while onsite with clients and when working remotely. They also plan to utilize the collaboration features to provide their clients with better self-service capability using extranets in 2005. Recognizing the importance of fostering a knowledge-sharing culture, Orchard will also develop a Know How library for knowledge management functionality during the second quarter of 2005. Organizing and categorizing internal knowledge will enable the firm to more efficiently deliver such services as standard transactions and will lend a greater hand in getting new lawyers up-to-speed on firm best practices, while preserving and protecting collective knowledge as lawyers leave the firm.