Pioneering thought leaders at Duane Morris LLP - one of the largest and well respected law firms in America - were the first of the US based IP practices to really understand what Patricia® could do for them in a financial, business and IP management sense. Since this ‘Eureka’ moment they have enjoyed astounding levels of year on year growth and success.
We thought it would be very interesting to catch up with two of the key driving forces – Lewis F. Gould, Jr. and Laura Bandrowsky to share their experiences during the process leading up to procurement, the implementation and the resulting ROI.
Lewis F Gould, Jr. is a Partner at Duane Morris LLP where he chairs the Intellectual Property Practice Group with over 40 years of expertise in his field. With emphasis on domestic and international patent and trademark matters, as well as acting as counsel for the petitioners in the ‘Markman’ landmark patent case, Lewis holds active roles on numerous board memberships, civic, and charitable organizations, giving speeches, writing and having been quoted in several IP related publications. Lewis is also listed in the ‘Pennsylvania Super Lawyers’ 2008 & 2009.
Laura Bandrowsky is the Practice Support Director and provides in-house technical consulting services to the attorneys at Duane Morris' offices throughout the world including, amongst others, needs assessment; project management; technology training for the firm's legal staff and the design and implementation of technical solutions. Laura has been advising on the use of technology in the practice of law for over 25 years and frequently speaks on related topics. Laura is also the COO of Wescott Technology Services LLC, an ancillary business of Duane Morris, which provides consulting and e-discovery consulting services to companies and law firms.
Laura and Lew also co-wrote and published a white paper entitled 'Solving an IP Practice Business Need with Patricia®' which can be found in article format at the following address:
http://www.duanemorris.com/articles/static/gould_bandrowsky_ljn0109.pdf
Q&A:
Duane Morris was the first law firm to adopt Patricia® in the US. It has been almost 6 years since you made the decision to switch - can you describe the situation you were in?
Lew:
I was first introduced to Patrix at the INTA meeting in Amsterdam back in 2003. I toured the exhibition hall with one of my partners, Greg Gulia. We were specifically looking for IP software vendors to meet 3 key objectives: (1) able to service multiple offices working on a single server and IP database; (2) able to accommodate new attorney business by enabling import their IP records into the docketing system within 60 days maximum; and, very importantly, (3) able to recapture the money which was expended from the PTO deposit and other accounts.
We first met with Deborah Warner and she listened to our key objectives. She assured us this could be achieved and suggested we return the next day for more information. We were interested, but skeptical.
We returned to the Patrix stand the next day and met with Carina Schramm (CEO), Mehrdad Assadi (CTO) and Deborah Warner (Project Manager) who provided us with a first indication that our objectives could, indeed, be met with Patricia®.
What followed was a round of interview with various IP system vendors, the firm’s IP legal team and the firm’s Information Services team. We narrowed the search to two vendors. We knew that both the firm and the selected vendor would have significant exposure in terms of investment. Patrix investment would be managing a high level of integration with 5 of the firm’s major software offerings to create an IP desktop. This level of commitment from Patrix was both encouraging and impressive and it was clear that the firm’s management was willing to invest in such a system to insure success in meeting the firm’s objectives.
What was the main drive to consolidate the environment you had?
Lew:
At the time, we were running 8 separate docket systems! They were not unified in any way and, as a result, management of the IP docket was inefficient and cumbersome. We were not recapturing all expenditures from the PTO deposit account because there was no integration with the firm’s billing system. Fees paid on behalf of clients were not always recaptured.
Laura: Docketing systems at the firm were my worst nightmare because the prior docketing system simply did not work for the legal team or for the IS administrators managing it .The firm was expanding its IP practice and as we grew, converting the data from each new client took too long. In fact, in one instance, the ingestion of a new partner’s docket took seven months. Our system requirements were therefore based around risk management, the technical side, and user friendliness. In our view, Patricia® fulfilled all of these needs and Patrix’ willingness to accommodate our requirements and partner with us to meet these needs was critical to us. Managing our old docketing systems took up 20% of my day that has been reduced to almost 0% with Patricia®! That change is a significant benefit to me, my staff and the firm’s business.
Working with the folks at Patrix and analysis of the Patricia® software allowed us to see more integration possibilities which made a valuable contribution to the business.
Michael Silverman, Esq,, is the firm’s General Counsel and as such, has primary responsibility for loss prevention. The firm participates in a group of law firms with many IP groups which insures the firms and provides guidance on the management of risk. Regular loss prevention sessions are conducted and a key focus is the prevention of missed deadlines. Patricia’s docketing and workflow procedures helps us to avoid this risk.
How did you manage ‘roll out’ of the system so successfully across multiple sites?
Lew:
The key was to involve lawyers from each office at the outset to give them an opportunity to participate in the decision-making process in the development of the new system . Every one of our offices sent lawyers to the Philadelphia office, on weekends only, for 6-8 weeks to give this high level of input to the Patricia® workflows.
I am a firm believer that you need lawyers from all the firm’s offices to participate in the process and you should not force change in their practice methods. Patricia®’s flexibility, especially in the workflow configuration area, allowed us to accommodate these needs and to promote recommended practices while allowing each satellite office to operate in their preferred way.
We also created the new position of ‘IP Docket Administrator’ and assigned this role to a computer savvy graduate of Drexel University, Geoffrey Castle. In turn each office has a docket person while Geoff, oversees the entirety of our docketing and is responsible for training and general supervision in that area
Laura:
Geoff works closely with the firm’s IS department and he has therefore become a valuable bridge between the IP and IS departments monitor activity and user satisfaction internally. He has additionally written some software programming which has strengthened the integration of the firm’s systems with Patricia® and has provided some nifty reporting to more closely manage important IP tasks.
What are the main gains you have noticed so far with the implementation of Patricia and are there any measurable financial benefits in terms of your ROI?
Lew:
Six years ago we had only 25 lawyers in the IP group whereas, today, we have 90 patent & trademark lawyers at Duane Morris. If you examine our practice areas, IP is now the third largest and has been the most rapidly growing group within Duane Morris over the last 10 years. Patricia® is, without a doubt, one of the key reasons for our success in managing this growth.
Laura:
With Patricia®, there is a very significant but somewhat ‘hidden’ ROI which is simply freeing time for fee earners to conduct more chargeable work.
Over the last years the IP group at Duane Morris has been successful in expanding and gaining the confidence of new clients, can you share with us the story behind this success?
Lew:
General Practice firms historically did not have IP practices although they are now catching on by acquiring boutiques and expanding practices into the IP domain. They are, however, commonly offering only a limited service by focusing mainly on the litigation areas in relation to patents and trademarks.
As the folks at Patrix know, to be successful in any market you need to continually strive to be better than and different from your competitors. Duane Morris achieves this partly by offering a very efficient, full service with a single hub for our clients to deal with all aspects of their IP requirements.
We could not offer and provide a full service without a very robust system in place.
Lew:
We also have a very strong business focused law firm management philosophy.
We were aware that we were not recapturing expenditures charged to the deposit account The successful integration of Patricia® with Elite® (our billing system) has resolved this issue and in 2008, we confirmed that every expenditure was recaptured. This alone is a huge achievement enabled by Patricia®.
The IP Market is changing, client requirements are more specific and access to information is becoming more of a necessity, how have you approached these changes at Duane Morris and how has this benefitted your clients?
Lew:
With the help of the earlier version of the Patricia® Collaboration Portal, Geoff Castle created the Duane Morris IP Portal. We offer the ability to view their key data and run helpful reports on line to our clients...
Laura:
The Duane Morris IP Portal offers an excellent level of value added service to our clients which is very much appreciated and the feedback we have received from them is always positive. We are therefore very interested in taking a closer look at what the new Patricia® Collaboration Portal has to offer as we are always keen to seek out and deliver an increased level of service for our clients while gaining a further business ‘edge’.
I feel that future trend and expectations will dictate the need for increased client facing capabilities to facilitate and deliver closer client/lawyer partnering within the management of IP matters. Duane Morris already builds very close partnerships with our clients, thus, current and future technology needs to be designed to enable us to continue delivering this level of excellence to our clients while retaining the all important personal touch.
We understand the number 9 had a very special meaning in your implementation project - 9 databases to consolidate, 9 Months to implement and 9 shots?..What is the story behind the number 9?
Laura:
When Patrix CTO – Mehrdad Assadi gave his word at the outset that he could write a conversion to consolidate nine databases over 1 weekend and have the system implemented in nine months, quite honestly, I just could not believe him. I have extensive previous experience in similar implementation and integration projects and this, to me, was simply an incredible claim.
Mehrdad brought in the Patrix team including Deborah Warner who was a great asset throughout the project, especially in terms of providing excellent levels of training and expert guidance in the production of our workflows.
True to their word, nine months later, at 1 a.m. , the DM team and the Patrix team were ready to run the final data conversion with all nine databases successfully consolidated. By then, though, we were all naturally feeling a little weary and ready for some sleep - all, that is, except for one of the Patrix team members – Ewa Mattson - who was surprisingly ‘bright eyed and bushy tailed’ – something had to be wrong here! “What’s with you Ewa?” someone said with a level of light-hearted annoyance at her unfading energy levels and then she revealed her secret…..”Hmm, I think the people in Starbucks nearly fainted!”, “Why?” came back the response “I think it may have been to do with me asking for 9 shots of coffee in one cup?!”
Patrix:
It’s true, Ewa had 9 shots of coffee in one cup at 1 am and, although 6 years later, still seems as chirpy as the day she drank it – we wonder has she ever slept since? Ewa went on to work for one of Patrix’ industry clients - Vin & Sprit AB – producers of ABSOLUT VODKA® where 9 shots may have a totally different outcome!