The law firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP has offices in Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Akron Ohio, as well as in Alexandria, VA and Washington, D.C. With more than 360 lawyers, Vorys is one of the largest law firms in the United States.

The law firm of Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease operates a process-driven environment which is very common across the legal industry. The firm was managing its business and servicing its clients through a combination of manual and electronic methods and numerous paper forms that were passed through multiple departments and across multiple offices. The firm’s processes had become difficult to centrally manage and its lack of automation created areas of inefficiency, including lack of uniformity across the firm and no quality control.

The firm recognized that by automating its business processes they could create a more streamlined and efficient work environment – which would ultimately give them the effectiveness and agility it needed to respond to changing conditions, new regulations and higher service demands.

Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease initiated an effort to deploy an automated system using Business Process Management software from Metastorm to help streamline its internal business processes, improve quality control and achieve consistent operating procedures across the organization.

Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease selected Metastorm BPM to begin converting its manual procedures into streamlined, efficient, automated processes. The first process the firm automated with Metastorm BPM is the process for bringing on new employees known within the firm as its New Hire process. This process had been particularly paper intensive and because it involves numerous departments across multiple offices, it was the perfect process to start off the project. With Metastorm BPM, the firm has standardized its New Hire process and realized improved efficiency, productivity and quality control by enabling anyone involved in the process to see where they fit into the process and how their work affects other departments. The Human Resources Department, as process owner, has complete visibility of its progress.

The firm has also leveraged Metastorm BPM across its firm for other processes including its Conflicts Checks process – one of the most critical activities for a law firm that involves checking for possible prospective and actual conflicts of interest each time a potential client or an existing client with a new matter asks the firm for representation and administrative procedures including an Employee Termination process and Employee Name and Address Change Requests process.

The firm has also integrated Metastorm with its internal systems and with its Elite practice management solution.

The firm will continue to build on these processes and will also benefit by automating additional processes, including the processes most critical to its core business – New Client Matter Intake.