Leading UK Law Firm Goldsmith Williams Goes Paperless With Digital Mailroom

PRLog (Press Release) – Feb 06, 2008 – Goldsmith Williams, one of the UK’s leading law firms, has deployed an advanced mailroom automation system to process the 1500 pages of mail it receives daily, ensuring fee-earners obtain mail quickly and claims are handled promptly and effectively.

The solution has been designed and deployed by the Data Capture Division of Basware UK, formerly known as Digital Vision, and uses Kofax software to process all mail received for the staff handling road traffic accident (RTA) claims at the company’s Liverpool headquarters.

All mail received, including faxes and emails, is scanned on arrival by the software. Critically, the solution automatically allocates 85% of incoming documents to the correct legal case and thereby routes them to the appropriate fee earners. Further classification is used to identify the nature and content of the document.

A major benefit of this automatic classification is that as a result, mail is electronically forwarded to each individual staff member with little or no manual intervention, removing the build up of mail within the company network and significantly improving mailroom efficiency.

Digitising incoming documents also removes the requirement to store large volumes of paper-based mail, which was a key business goal for Goldsmith Williams when developing the system.

Goldsmith Williams now has full tractability over what mail has been received and where it can be located. Since the documents have been logged into the new system, the company has experienced a 100% reduction in complaints regarding lost mail.

Rob Hunt, (of Varg IT) the consultant project manager said: “The benefits of the solution are not only being enjoyed by Goldsmith Williams but also by our clients, who can now experience a quicker, more efficient service with the reassurance that all their relevant documents remain safe and confidential.

”When choosing a solution, Basware Data Capture was the only company that met our specification and key requirements, demonstrating strong legal sector credentials and expertise with successful deployments at other firms.”

With the new solution, the documents are scanned and matched against the current database using Kofax Indicius software. The automatic classification system then routes the documents to the appropriate electronic case file and fee earner.

Using an Eclipse case management system, the scanned images are stored on an electronic archive so the company has a permanent record of what mail has been received and processed.

Prior to deployment, all mail received had to be processed manually. Staff in the mailroom would receive the various items of post, manually sort them and then physically deliver them to the necessary departments. This was both time-consuming and costly, and there was no audit trail of the documents if any item was mislaid.

Goldsmith Williams chose to partner with Basware Data Capture because of its experience in deploying similar advanced digital mailroom solutions. Basware Data Capture designed and implemented a paperless mailroom and the first phase was successfully deployed in October 2007 in the RTA sector of the company.

There are plans for Basware Data Capture to undertake the second phase of the automation process in the re-mortgaging department at Goldsmith Williams in Spring 2008 and the final phase in the company’s conveyancing branch will take place later next year.