I.R.I.S. has announced the installation by I.R.I.S. – Morningstar Systems of Interwoven’s WorkSite 8 solution for Eubelius. With 22 partners, 100 attorneys and three offices in Brussels, Kortrijk and Antwerp, Eubelius is one of the largest independent law firms in Belgium. Eubelius offers legal advice and representation for business transactions and disputes.

            The volume of documents circulating in the organization has been growing, as well as the flow of emails. “Documents were stored on the file server and emails on the mail server, whereas emails often concern a given file. In other words, related information was not always stored in the same place. Furthermore, emails were often sent to several people, who then saved all these messages in their own message box. All this data occupied an enormous amount of server space, causing an additional problem,” said IT manager Jan Vanherpe.
             Eubelius called on I.R.I.S’s Dutch subsidiary Morningstar Systems, for the installation of Interwoven’s Worksite 8 document management system.  The solution was designed for the provision of legal services and stresses the file and the client. “But Eubelius’s choice did not automatically fall on WorkSite,” said Mr Vanherpe. “We carefully studied and evaluated other solutions available on the market. From the outset, our preference was for WorkSite since this solution was fully suited to a law firm’s day-to-day management activities and met all our expectations from a technical standpoint. In our view, this system offers unrivalled stability. Choosing this solution was also determined by the solution developer, namely I.R.I.S. – Morningstar Systems. This company is entirely dedicated to document management and has a full understanding of the needs of law firms.”
            WorkSite allows documents to be saved in the appropriate context. The users quickly obtain a view of all the documents. WorkSite enables users to search using free text or metadata. It makes it possible to search for documents and the information in these documents. The system permits multiple people to work simultaneously on the same document. The system was deployed in Eubelius’s Brussels and Antwerp offices, and a few days later deployed in the Kortrijk office. Several I.R.I.S. – Morningstar employees were present to oversee the operation. “In our offices we use a Belgian client management software suite. I.R.I.S.– Morningstar Systems developed an interface between this suite and WorkSite so that files created in the client management system are also automatically created in WorkSite,” said Mr. Vanherpe. It took only four days to train all Eubelius’s employees, namely some 90 lawyers and 35 administrative staff. The support staff received more advanced training than the lawyers since, in practice, they will most often need to search and save documents. “Despite a relatively short training period, all staff could subsequently use the system without any problem,” said Mr. Vanherpe. “In addition, it was important for the system to be operational on the last day of training. Staff were thus able to put the knowledge acquired directly into practice.”
          “The project’s success is also due to careful preparation of the system’s implementation. We set up a project group that brought together a range of functions within the firm, ensuring active participation on the part of the entire business. The system was operational overnight. The reception was positive and the benefits undeniable, particularly in terms of saving and accessing emails.”
           “The system saves time and money. Employees spend less time searching documents since they are saved very logically in the document management system,” said Mr Vanherpe. “This system has enabled some departments to review their working methods and adopt a far more efficient approach, inspired by the document management system’s procedures and for which I.R.I.S. – Morningstar Systems has advanced expertise. The most positive aspect of adopting WorkSite is an undisputable improvement in efficiency. Lawyers can collaborate more easily on files and instantaneously see the changes made, their authors and the latest document versions. Plus, we benefit from increased mail server space. Each email is now saved only once, associated with the relevant context. And emails relating to a given file are stored in the same place.”