SeeUnity and HighQ Partnership Enables Secure Collaboration – Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP (BCLP) was officially launched April 1, 2018; an integration of two highly innovative firms: Bryan Cave LLP (BC) and Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP (BLP). Both firms bring to the table numerous accolades proving their commitment to staying on the cutting edge of technology and services by promoting a culture of collaboration.

A significant hurdle for BCLP after the merger was how to quickly bring together the two cultures in order to leverage their collective expertise and remain productive. Decisions needed to be made related to how the groups efficiently and securely work together on projects, such as mirror matters, that needed immediate attention. As each firm owned a different DMS with their own HighQ instance, the groups needed an integrated collaboration solution.

Information Services (IS) was looking to enable the newly merged firm’s internal teams to work together productively, in a controlled and secure manner that was in line with their Information Governance (IG) initiatives. This proved to be a challenge, as legacy BC attorneys work within eDOCS DM, whereas legacy BLP attorneys work within their iManage Work. Other IS considerations included audit requirements, such as being able to locate and pull any documents or data from their content systems. And due to client security requirements, the eDOCS DM repository of record on the legacy BC side must remain on premise. 

Prior to the BCLP merger, both BC and BLP had independently worked towards providing a collaboration solution for their attorneys. Each firm needed a platform that could provide secure extranet sites for collaboration and sharing sensitive information, along with administrative control over access and permissions for their external partners.