On October 12th and 13th, iManage held their first in-person ConnectLive conference since 2019. It was at the Willis Tower in iManage’s home town of Chicago. Attendance was very good. Attendees reported that they were very pleased with the content of the sessions. The venue, Convene in the Willis Tower, was wonderful, adding to the friendly ambiance.
One of my favorite sessions was a fireside chat between Meredith Williams-Range, Chief Knowledge and Client Value Officer at Shearman & Sterling, and Neil Araujo, iManage’s CEO and co-founder. Ms. Williams-Range is a leader in the world of digital knowledge management. In 2018 Williams-Range arrived at Shearman and Sterling, a firm founded in 1873. The firm had one billion documents in locations across the globe, an aged document management system, and very little process around associating files with a Client-Matter and filing to DMS.
They studied the way forward and decided that they would migrate to a cloud-based document management system. This was not a minor decision for a Big Law firm in New York City. Risk averse clients, including those in financial services, have historically been opposed to cloud storage. However, the team worked with their clients to educate them about the change. Ultimately, there was no client resistance. Kudos!
Of course, then COVID hit. Their decision served them well. They were able to migrate to iManage’s Work 10 Cloud during the pandemic. The migration was a success.
For more background on Ms. Williams-Range’s pioneering career and her work at Shearman, I recommend this Profile Magazine spotlight, Meredith Williams-Range Builds the Law Firm of the Future.
To all of the attendees, heavens, it was wonderful to see you again and to show you the latest enhancements in our LINK app. I have to say that the most appreciated new feature in our LINK app was automated check-in after editing.
Here’s what I mean. In our LINK app, check a file out of iManage Work. Edit it in the Word app. Then there is an easy process for the lawyer to check the edited version back into iManage Work. But…if the lawyer does not check the edited version into iManage Work, LINK will automatically check it in. Voila! Lots of love for automatic check-in.
ConnectLive 2023 may be back in NYC. We’ll see you there!
-Maureen