The Corporate Fast Track
Case management
programs are the right ticket for these large corporate legal
departments.
By Debra Levy
Martinelli
November/December 2003 Issue
When you think of case
management software, you might immediately think of litigation, but
times have changed. Paralegals in corporations nationwide have hopped on
the case management train, discovering cost-saving, time-saving and
sometimes angst-saving benefits of programs such as Synaptec Software
Inc.’s LawBase and Bridgeway’s eCounsel. Nancy Jones and George Sheehy
are just two of the paralegals in corporations nationwide who have
discovered the benefits of case management software in their corporate
law departments.
Tracking Trademarks and Domain Data
Nancy Jones can’t imagine a day without LawBase. A paralegal
in the 130-plus-member legal department of Turner Broadcasting System
Inc., with headquarters in Atlanta, Jones manages just about every
aspect of her intellectual property work for the media and sports
conglomerate with LawBase, a computerized case management system.
At TBS, a Time Warner
company originally founded by media mogul Ted Turner more than 20 years
ago, Jones and Senior Counsel Rick McMurtry are part of the 19-member
Brand Management Group in the company’s legal department. Everyone in
the group, from the records center support staff to senior attorneys,
uses LawBase to manage the corporation’s trademark and domain name
portfolio for TBS entities CNN, including 15 cable and satellite
television networks, two private place-based networks, two radio
networks, 12 Web sites, CNN Mobile, syndicated news service CNN
Newsource; Turner’s entertainment networks TBS Superstation, TNT, Turner
Classic Movies, and regional entertainment network Turner South; and
Turner’s animation networks Cartoon Network, Boomerang and regional
networks featuring animation; as well as the Atlanta Braves baseball
team.
Jones, who earned a
bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1975 from Appalachian State University
in Boone, N.C., and a paralegal certificate from the recently closed
National Center for Paralegal Studies in Atlanta (see November/December
2002 LAT) in 1992, came to TBS from Michelin North America’s corporate
legal department six years ago. She has worked with McMurtry, a 1994
graduate of Vanderbilt University’s law school, since he joined TBS more
than three years ago. Both used case management software in previous
positions, but neither used Synaptec’s LawBase until they went to TBS.
TBS, however, is no
stranger to LawBase. “The legal department has been using some LawBase
product for the past eight or nine years,” Jones said. “The first one
was a DOS-based version.” Immediately before LawBase 2000, which the
department began using in January 2003, it used LawBase for Windows.
“LawBase 2000 is such an improvement over the previous versions,” she
added.
The duo uses the
software to track trademark and domain name prosecutions, trademark and
domain name enforcements (oppositions, cancellations and unauthorized
uses), claims by third parties and litigation matters. Most of the
information is input by the user, based on filing documents,
correspondence with the USPTO and registration certificates as well as
information provided by outside counsel.
“We can track
information in the entire portfolio by such categories as type of
action, subsidiary, and the territory or region in which a trademark was
filed,” McMurtry explained. “We can determine how many trademarks TBS
holds in Lebanon, which is classified as a territory, or how many
opposition actions have been filed against our trademarks in Asia, which
is classified as a region.” Worldwide, the company holds more than 7,500
trademarks and more than 3,000 domain name applications and
registrations.
This legal team also
uses LawBase to search by class of goods. If they want to know how many
registrations TBS holds for a mark in a certain region for clothing,
they can search for Class 25, the international trademark designation
for clothing, and find out how many marks are held in the region and
specifically where they are held. “LawBase provides a comprehensive look
at that data, so we can see where we may need to fill holes,” McMurtry
explained. “We may have a lot of marks for clothing in South America,
but we may not have one in Colombia, so we would look into getting one
there.”
He cited another
example of how the team uses LawBase by describing a recent trademark
search request from a TBS subsidiary. “The name sounded familiar,” he
said. “I searched it on LawBase and not only found that we had searched
it previously but also discovered TBS already had the trademark and the
rights to it. And I was able to locate the trademark applications and
the oppositions to it. It saved a lot of time for the client.”
The version of LawBase
2000 used by the TBS legal staff is a customized rather than an
“off-the-shelf” product. The other groups in the legal department —
transactional, litigation, media production practice, labor and
employment, and sports law — all have access to and uses for LawBase.
The Employment Group, for instance, might use it to track talent
agreements, which are contracts between the company and employees such
as news anchors and reporters. Security features limiting the people who
have access to those contracts protect the sensitive information
contained in them. “A lot of people would probably like to know how much
money [news anchor] Paula Zahn makes, which would probably be in her
talent agreement,” McMurtry said. “But only the people who need to know
that information have access to it.”
The Brand Management
Group uses five different LawBase screens for its trademark and domain
name practice: trademark search, which captures information regarding
new trademarks for things such as program titles or network names that
TBS might adopt; trademark prosecution, which captures data about
trademarks for which applications for registrations have been filed in
various countries around the world; domain name registration, which
captures information concerning domain names registered to TBS;
trademark and domain name enforcement, which captures data regarding
unauthorized uses of TBS trademarks or domain names, claims from third
parties regarding Turner’s use of a mark or domain name, and piracy of
goods bearing TBS marks; and trademark and domain name litigation, which
captures information about litigation arising out of an enforcement
matter or an opposition or cancellation proceeding. Each shows different
fields that can be tracked.
Developing those
screens was a large part of the LawBase customization process and Jones
was largely responsible for customizing the software for the search and
prosecution functions. “Nancy’s primary responsibilities at Turner deal
with trademark search and prosecution, which is why she was chosen to
lead the effort to customize those screens,” McMurtry said. “I was
primarily responsible for leading efforts to customize the remaining
screens. Of course, we had input from all the other members of the
Trademark Domain Name team of the Brand Management Group.”
Jones said her
favorite features of LawBase 2000 are its flexibility, speed and
report-writing capabilities. “The software can search any field and is
very fast. It takes under a minute to get results. And it is very, very
good at report writing,” she said. “Intellectual property portfolios of
this size require at least weekly ‘critical date’ reports of deadlines
that must be met for trademark applications and registrations, as well
as enforcement and litigation matters. We also run status and history
reports in answer to a variety of questions. We may be asked or have a
reason to define our portfolio by any of the fields of information we
have entered. LawBase allows us to easily choose this sort of criteria
and the fields that will appear on the report. The reports are dumped
into [Microsoft] Excel for further ease of handling.” She said a hard
copy report will be run if outside counsel needs a picture of the
company’s trademark portfolio in Portugal, for example.
Still, there is one
feature, in her opinion, LawBase lacks. “True IP software automatically
calculates certain filing dates and deadlines and sends reminders on
them,” she explained. “If I entered the date a trademark was registered
in the United States, true IP software would automatically calendar that
between the fifth and sixth years I need to file certain documents and
in the 10th year I need to file certain other documents. We hope to be
able to automate the filing of some fields, but at this time all
information is entered from the documents.”
That deficiency
notwithstanding, the software’s benefits to Jones, McMurtry and their
colleagues are enormous. “LawBase is more than just helpful,” Jones
said. “It’s a requirement in managing a portfolio as large as ours.”
Managing Transactions and Litigation Worldwide
George Sheehy’s world would be a very different place without
Bridgeway’s eCounsel, the case management software used by his employer,
Convergys, an international company based in Cincinnati providing
outsourced services to clients such as AT&T, Microsoft and DirecTV. With
eCounsel, Sheehy, the sole paralegal in the company’s legal department,
can access the information he needs with lightning speed.
Sheehy is responsible
for coordinating responses to all subpoenas duces tecum for all of
Convergys’ 56 locations in 24 states. He also is the department’s
authority — “SME” or subject matter expert, in corporate parlance — on
telemarketing laws and regulations, as well as the office automation
guru.
By the time Sheehy
joined the company in May 2000, after 13 years at the Cincinnati law
firm of Frost & Jacobs, Convergys’ legal department had already selected
eCounsel as its case management software. A team composed of SMEs in the
different areas of the department was formed. Sheehy, who had three
years experience as a litigation support manager at Frost & Jacobs, was
part of that group, which worked with Bridgeway representatives to
customize and implement eCounsel.
“The team was included
in meetings with Bridgeway [personnel] when the screens we now see when
we use eCounsel were designed,” said Sheehy, a 1985 graduate of the
University of Northern Iowa and a 1987 graduate from the Philadelphia
Paralegal Institute’s certificate program. “They asked us, ‘How do you
do your work?’ We walked them through the documents we use and picked
the fields and drop-down lists that would be important for us to track
information in those documents.”
In spring 2001, after
several on-site visits from Bridgeway and a mock-up and test of the
specially designed eCounsel system, it was rolled out and training for
Convergys legal department employees began at Bridgeway’s Houston
headquarters. Sheehy and two other members of the department also were
designated system administrators and were taught how to do the job and
train others to use the software.
“It’s easy to train
people to use eCounsel because it’s intuitive and it’s Web-based. It has
the look and feel of a Web page, which is familiar to most users,”
Sheehy said.
He and his colleagues,
11 attorneys and five contract administrators, at Convergys’ Cincinnati
world headquarters, where all of the data entry is centralized, use
eCounsel. The attorney and two contract administrators in the company’s
Jacksonville, Fla., office have access to the system; the six attorneys
and one contract administrator in its Europe, Middle East and Asia
operations send their contracts to the Cincinnati office for
incorporation into the eCounsel system.
“The main purpose of
eCounsel that has evolved at Convergys is as a disaster recovery
mechanism,” Sheehy explained. “Convergys makes its money by signing
contracts with clients. As part of the process, when the contract is
finalized, a matter is created in eCounsel. The matter contains all the
important base information — names, dates, amounts — as well as an
attached final version of the contract.”
It’s no accident that
the thousands of electronically saved contracts are stored on a server
in a building separate from where the legal department is housed. “That
was by design,” Sheehy said. “After Sept. 11, security became a
priority. It just happened that we were implementing eCounsel at that
time.” The idea is if for some reason Convergys’ legal team were a
target of some type of terrorist attack, the documents would be safe.
“The contracts are some of the most important documents the company
has,” Sheehy said.
From the perspective
of Convergys Senior Attorney Michelle Rowland, whose practice focuses
primarily on contract negotiation, eCounsel has made organizing and
locating documents quick and easy. “George [Sheehy] has done a great job
of ensuring all of the documents filed in the legal department are
scanned into eCounsel. All of the agreements I need to locate are right
at my fingertips,” said Rowland, a three-year Convergys veteran.
But because Convergys’
legal department does much more than negotiate contracts, it uses
eCounsel for much more, including managing current litigation matters —
such as the subpoena duces tecum responses for which Sheehy is
responsible — as well as maintaining vendor contracts, corporate
documents, and employee benefit and pension records. The company, Sheehy
said, has plans for even more uses, including monitoring statements for
services rendered by outside law firms. “The software has the
flexibility to import an electronic version of the bill and run a series
of checks and balances,” he explained. If, for instance, Convergys and a
law firm have agreed that only designated attorneys and paralegals can
work on a matter and that no attorney or paralegal will bill more than
eight hours a day on any single matter, eCounsel can flag any deviations
documented on the billing statement. It also can flag billable rates
higher than those Convergys has agreed to pay and can search for
mathematical errors, Sheehy added.
Although he said the
customized version of eCounsel serves the original purpose Convergys had
in mind when it purchased it, at least one function contemplated at the
outset has not been used. “Much of our contract negotiations are handled
through e-mail. When the eCounsel system was originally designed, we
envisioned using it throughout the negotiation process so we could track
versions of the contract. The [technological] tools to switch that
function to eCounsel are there. But some users’ comfort level with it
didn’t get to where the department as a whole felt it would be
beneficial to change from the way we had been tracking contracts with
Lotus Notes,” he explained. The department continues to use Lotus Notes
for that purpose.
The final version of
the contract, however, including a summary of its basic information, is
maintained on eCounsel. “If my general counsel needs to see contracts
regarding Atlys, which is one of our billing software products, that
information is captured in eCounsel so the contracts can be located
through a field search,” Sheehy said. Fields include product name,
contract date, ranges of monetary contract values on an annual basis and
contact information for both Convergys personnel and the client.
Rowland said she
appreciates the instant availability of information eCounsel offers.
“But I do feel legal users could expand the use of the product by
spreading the word more effectively through other organizations within
the company that would benefit from the software,” she said. “Now that
the legal department has mastered the use of eCounsel, George is
currently making an effort to determine what other departments would
benefit.”
The first to express
interest in using eCounsel was the accounts receivable department. “They
need to view contract documents, but there’s no reason for them to have
access to, for example, employee litigation matters,” Sheehy explained.
“So the rights of each user are limited. The system administrator
assigns a user ID and password to each person who has access. Each
person has a profile card based on his or her job and the system
administrator maintains each employee’s level of access.”
Inside the company,
other departments have followed the accounts receivable group’s lead.
“Within the past six months or so, the word has gotten out in the
corporation that eCounsel is available. After the accounts receivable
department asked for access, the sourcing group handling vendor
contracts also indicated an interest. As more departments are finding
out about eCounsel, they are telling us they want access to it,” he
said.
That doesn’t mean,
though, that all Convergys employees worldwide eventually will use
eCounsel in their jobs. “We have 45,000 employees and 30,000 of them
work in our contact centers. Most of them won’t need eCounsel. But the
managers who run the programs in those centers may need access if they
need to see the contracts [under which they are operating],” Sheehy
said.
The Case for Corporate Use
For Jones and Sheehy, case management software is as
indispensable a tool as e-mail or the Internet. With just a few
keystrokes, they can gather and analyze information that otherwise might
take hours or longer to pull together. And for any paralegal, saving
time is invaluable.
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