MORRISON & FOERSTER IN 2012

Research@mofo is the name of our centralised reference system at Morrison & Foerster, which is available to over 1000 attorneys spread across 15 offices. The firm was set up in 1883 and is headquartered in San Francisco. There are nine offices in the US, and six international offices spread over Asia and Europe. The library team consists of 25 staff based across 10 offices, with the larger offices like San Francisco and New York having a larger staff compared to smaller offices such as Denver or London where there is just one librarian. There is also a team of technical services staff in San Francisco who run the bulk of the centralised services such as cataloguing and acquisitions, and also deal with global contracts. The reference enquiry service deals with over 2,100 requests each month.

Jas Breslin

THE OLD WAY

The driving issue behind the implementation of Research@mofo was to improve client service. Under our old system of working, attorneys could contact the library in various ways: by email, using local library email addresses such as Library-SF which would automatically forward to the team in San Francisco, or an attorney could email an individual in the library; by telephone, calling an individual or calling the same telephone number from anywhere in the firm which would direct the caller to the nearest librarian for that office; or in person, by visiting the library to discuss a question. The local library teams tended to work only with others in their immediate team, though we did (and still do) have experts for specific research areas such as corporate securities research and legislative histories. On the whole, requests tended to be dealt with by a library staff member in the same office in which the requesting attorney was based.

ISSUES WITH THE OLD SYSTEM

This system worked, but there were some faults with it. For instance, it was easy to duplicate efforts. One person might pick up an email request that came in to the local team and work on it without ‘replying-all’ to the request to make sure the rest of the team knew they were working on it. This could be frustrating for the staff. Conversely, if a request was sent to the local library team and if everyone in the team was busy, the request could sit unanswered for some time. This was not satisfactory for the client.

Another scenario was that the attorneys in one office may have had a favourite researcher they would always send their requests to. This was positive on one level, but it could also mean that this staff member would be very busy much of the time. It could also cause issues for new team members trying hard to establish their own client base.

Also, because our library teams tended to work independently of each other, and although the ratio of library staff to attorneys was proportionate in every office, there could be times when one office was extremely busy while another was relatively idle. If one office team was busy they could send an email out on the team-wide distribution list to request help, but it was still difficult to tell which offices or individuals were busy or had capacity. In short, we felt that as a team we did not have control over our workload and we were having difficulty managing ‘bandwidth’ when things were particularly busy. We were acutely aware that although this had not yet impacted on the service we offered to our clients, there was the potential for this to happen if we did not address the problem.

Another major issue was that we did not have access to statistical data to justify our team's role within the firm, or to use for recruitment purposes and management reports.

Finally, it was becoming increasingly obvious that the hours when local library staff were available did not suit some attorneys – we all know attorneys do not go home at 6pm, while library staff cannot be expected to work the same hours as attorneys. Even those library staff with Blackberries could not always be expected to respond adequately to requests for help when it was out of hours.

FINDING A SOLUTION

We were becoming aware that if an attorney was able to look outside their own office for research assistance then they could take advantage of the difference in time zones. So, if an attorney at 6pm in New York (East Coast) could ask a librarian in San Francisco (West Coast, three hours behind) to help with some research, there would still be time for them to assist in their normal business hours. This meant that the attorney in New York would not have to wait until the next day for assistance, nor would the New York librarian have to stay late after hours to help with an urgent request.

With the above in mind we thought that the obvious solution to some of the issues outlined would be to give attorneys access to library staff across the firm, and this would include extended service hours to take advantage of the multiple time zones the firm works across. This would mean library staff would pick up requests from outside their own local office on a regular basis, and we would move to being a firmwide resource.

At this time both our IT department and Word Processing department had rolled out a ticketing system to log calls and requests for help, and to manage their workload across their teams. Our firmwide library manager investigated the software capabilities and decided that this was something that the library team could also use effectively, if we could get authorisation from firm management. The software, called ServiceNow, was already in place and our team could also benefit from this existing vendor relationship, as well as being able to take advantage of the experiences gained from the other teams. All this would help to keep development costs low.

THE NEW WAY

The library team now uses the software system in the following way. Firstly, an email is sent by the attorney/client, from anywhere in the firm, to a specific email address – in our team's case, Research@mofo. The email is fed into ServiceNow and for each record created there are certain fields that are pre-populated: the sender's name, office, contact details, date/time of email, with the title of the email displayed as the heading for the record.

The next step is for a researcher in the library to ‘claim’ that request, enter some additional details on to the record, then get back to the attorney and let them know their request is being handled. Then it's time to actually do the research needed.

Everyone in the library team would have access to all the requests that come in via this method, but the system would be set up so that only one person could claim a request, thus eliminating the issue of duplication of work. Meanwhile, the original email would be stored in an Outlook inbox, which we could use to communicate with the requestor.

One of the best attributes of the system is that if an attorney emails or telephones a specific librarian for help, or visits the library in person, that librarian can still input the request into the system. Crucially, the attorney does not have to change the way they contact the library – this is something we know can be important to them.

Also, because all requests are fed into the same system, we now have access to precise statistical data about the work our team is doing – this was something that generated a lot of excitement in our team when the system was put in place, as we had never had access to this sort of data at a firmwide team level before.

IMPLEMENTING A SOLUTION

But of course, there is more to this than just switching a switch, and the implementation took a great deal of planning and plenty of work. To begin with our firm-wide library manager presented a proposal to firm management towards the end of 2009 and stated that the library would benefit in various ways if the team could have access to the ServiceNow software. In short, we envisioned increased efficiency and effectiveness; we would be utilising software already used in the firm; we could generate statistics and metrics; and we would be able to demonstrate the value of the library team to the rest of the firm.

At the beginning of 2010, the firm-wide library manager was given the go ahead to employ the software in the library team. The team then developed an implementation plan.

Across the library we established different sub-teams to look at different aspects of implementation. For example, a Process Team was set up to look at the workflow process. The Training Team was tasked with the training of staff and creating guidance manuals. The Communications Team would put together a strategy for communicating the changes to the attorneys, and the Metrics Team set out to categorise requests by type so that we could run meaningful statistical reports. The Steering Committee met regularly with the Chairs of all the sub-committees to ensure all parts of the project were on track. We also set up weekly team meetings for everyone to get together via conference call and discuss ideas, thoughts and problems. This was important as we wanted to be working in a consistent way using the same procedures. We also set up a wiki to post questions and thoughts, and to document procedures as they were developed.

Because we were creating a central system where all requests would be received, we realised that we also needed to ensure that everyone in the team had the same research capabilities to handle those requests. We therefore ran some training sessions to ensure that everyone had the same understanding of how to do basic requests like researching company information, obtaining company filings at the US Securities & Exchange Commission, and locating legal and business information for the UK. This created opportunities for experts to share their knowledge and expertise, and in turn to develop the skills and knowledge of other team members.

In order to address concerns about how workflow was changing so dramatically, the team also underwent change management training. The training was run in-house and we looked at the emotional life cycle of change with a view to maintaining a positive and supportive attitude during this transition period as we moved to the new system.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE ONE

Phase one of the transition from old system to new system began in January 2010. We began to forward all emails that came in from local library email addresses like Library-SF to our new email address Research@mofo. Whoever picked up that request from the central Research@mofo Outlook mailbox would email the attorney to let them know that research requests should now be sent to our new email address and that they should use this email address in future. At this point we were not using the ServiceNow system, we were just trying to get the attorneys used to sending emails to the new central email address.

We redesigned our email signatures to highlight the change in how to contact the library, and one of the more creative members of our team designed a staff map with pictures of all the team grouped by office and set over a background map of the world. The thinking behind this was to make our service feel more personal.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE TWO

During phase two of the transition, the library team was given access to the ServiceNow system and emails sent to Research@mofo began to be automatically forwarded to this system. From June, we went through a two month period of user acceptance testing where we entered data ourselves onto the system to see how it coped, and any requests that came to individuals were manually forwarded to the system. During this period we were still primarily using the Research@mofo Outlook mailbox to ensure requests were claimed.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE THREE

Phase three, in July, saw the introduction of the system to a set of beta-clients, and we began to use the live ServiceNow system to claim live queries. This beta testing allowed us to review some of the technical difficulties in the system and to come up with solutions – for instance, field headings which were too long to display onscreen and needed to be adjusted. However, there were some issues that could not be resolved – for example there will always be a time lag between an email appearing in the Outlook mailbox and the item appearing in the ServiceNow system. Also, emails with an attachment over a certain size will not automatically be forwarded to ServiceNow.

Meanwhile, all library staff members were offered dual screens – two screens linked to their computer, one screen to be used just for monitoring requests coming in, while the other screen is used for working normally.

Finally we were ready to roll out the system across the firm. We did this in August 2010.

THE DASHBOARD: HOW RESEARCH@MOFO WORKS

All library team members have access to the dashboard which shows requests as they come into the ServiceNow system. We call the list of unclaimed requests the Queue – i.e. requests from attorneys/clients waiting to be claimed by a member of the research team. When a request comes in it is possible to click on the request and assess the question being asked, and you can then either claim the request under your name, or assign it to someone else, or leave it if you don't think you can handle it. We realised early on when looking at how procedures should work that we needed a co-ordinator to make sure that all requests are picked up. There are always some types of queries that do not get picked up straight away but the co-ordinator makes sure requests in the Queue do not languish. If there are issues with a time consuming or difficult request that requires clarification it is the co-ordinator's role to liaise with the attorney, and then find someone to take on the request.

CLAIMING A NEW REQUEST

The researcher will claim a request from the Queue, but we also mark off the request in the Outlook mailbox, too – this is our back up procedure and, as mentioned above, some emails with attachments do not get automatically forwarded to the ServiceNow Queue, so it's useful to check the Outlook mailbox frequently to ensure nothing is overlooked. This also provides a useful backup if ServiceNow fails – we can still pick up requests sent to the team. The Outlook mailbox is also the way we communicate with the requestor, by replying to their original email.

When the request is claimed in the Queue there are other fields on the record that need to be completed. The system does not allow changes to be saved until all fields are completed: job type, work type, client matter number, the name of the person claiming the request, and changing the status of the request from ‘Unclaimed’ to ‘In Progress’. When you claim a request and mark it as ‘In Progress’, it will then automatically display in the ‘My Work’ list.

Once the request is claimed from the Queue the librarian contacts the attorney by replying to their original email, to acknowledge safe receipt of the request and to let them know who is dealing with it. They can also clarify any research points at this time too, if necessary.

Any requests which come in to a librarian's individual email address, or by telephone or in person, are manually entered on to the system.

We aim to respond to requests that come in to the system within 15 to 30 minutes within our service hours which are 6am to 6pm Pacific Time – that's 2pm to 2am London time. We officially only cover Monday to Friday but we do get rush requests that come in over the weekend and overnight, and library managers do monitor the Queue out of hours and respond to requests if it's an urgent job – even if it's simply a quick email to check if something can wait until the morning. Also, the international offices pick up what we can, though there can be times when we do not have the technical expertise or access to certain databases in order to respond to a request.

One of the best practice points we have introduced is creating a co-ordinator role during our official hours. There are three people each day on a rota system in the US who monitor requests as they come in and ensure that the request is claimed or allocated to a reference librarian. There are times when a request can sit in the Queue for a while, as mentioned above, and it is the co-ordinator's role to reach out to the team and find someone who can claim it. The system automatically generates an email which is sent to the co-ordinators if the request has sat in the Queue for more than 30 minutes. The ‘In Progress’ category which researchers assign to a request that they are currently still working on also allows the co-ordinator to see who already has a lot on their plate and who perhaps has capacity to take on additional work.

Our team prides itself on getting back to an attorney about their request within minutes of it joining the Queue. People tend to worry about their email not being received if they don't hear confirmation, so we like to reassure our clients that we have at least picked up the request, even if the co-ordinator in the background has not yet decided who will be completing it.

STATISTICS

The number of fields in the input form on ServiceNow means there are now a great deal of reports we can run. We can look at data in terms of marketing queries versus client billable research, top 10 requestors, by type of request (article search, company information, legal research, patent history etc.), by office, by how the request came in (email, telephone or in person), and the time of day the request was received. These statistics have given us a much wider understanding of the sort of research we do as a team, who we work for, and the demographics of our clientele. We have also been able to use this information to justify staffing plans.

The dashboard of ServiceNow also displays a graphical chart of completed requests over the last 30 days by team members. By clicking on different columns on the chart, you can access the records of requests that each team member has completed. It's very interesting to view the requests other people have done to see the kind of work our team is involved in, and this has provided a deeper understanding of the work individual offices do, as we did not have this transparency before.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT?

This new workflow procedure was implemented in August 2010, and since then we have learnt so much more about the team, the firm, and each other. We have adapted our working methods and we are now able to offer our clients a more enhanced service, with extended hours and a better response time. The library team has more visibility in the firm, and closer relationships across geographical boundaries have been firmly established. The library team itself, is also working in a much more collaborative way, and we have a better understanding of our counterparts in other offices and the types of work they do. The camaraderie within the team has flourished and although many of us have not met each other face to face, we know a great deal about each other's expertise and who will have the requisite skills to help when a perplexing piece of research comes in that we may be struggling with.

One of the most exciting aspects of responding to research requests from outside the local office has been getting involved in legal and business research areas that you perhaps wouldn't experience if you only dealt with your local office questions. This has provided everyone in the team with the opportunity to learn new research skills and take on new challenges they might not otherwise have been exposed to.

As mentioned, the team now works much more collaboratively, and this manifests itself in our wiki, where we have all contributed our knowledge to answering frequently asked questions. This wiki is similar to the BIALL ‘How Do I?’ wiki, where, for example, we have a page on how to answer questions about researching patents, or locating European case law. Using the wiki has given us the opportunity to use new technologies and share our knowledge with colleagues.

Our new way of working also helps to satisfy the librarian's insatiable curiosity when it comes to researching new areas and new subjects. It never ceases to amaze me how often another member of the team will contact me about a request I handled, to ask which resources I used or to find out more about the question, and I will often contact other members of the team with similar questions. Our work is transparent now, and we ask each other questions all the time in our quest to understand our firm's work and increase our knowledge.

The work that we do is now also much more joined-up, as we understand the bigger picture of what the firm is working on worldwide. This can mean we can be much more proactive, rather than just reactive.

On a personal level there's also a benefit that is very important for those of us who work as solo librarians. This is the fact that it is now possible to take a lunch break or to go on holiday, safe in the knowledge that there is a team to back us up, someone else for an attorney to turn to in our absence. In the past this could be a difficulty, because the solo librarians had to make sure that someone else was willing to be named in their out of office email reply. But now we simply have the back up of Research@mofo.

RESIDUAL ISSUES

There are some residual issues that have not yet been resolved, but which we continue to strive to overcome. For example, there are licensing issues with some databases only being available to certain offices or certain individuals. Also, when dealing with interlibrary loans, the physical book still has to be retrieved by a person in that same local office and sent on.

We also have some requests made in the local language in the office, so if a request is made in Japanese or we need to obtain material in German, this imposes a limit on who can claim the request.

Our system allows us to capture information about how long a request took to complete, and this is an important piece of information as our library team bills its time. Unfortunately, at the moment, the ServiceNow software is not integrated with our billing system, which means that we have to re-input our time into the billing system. We are now working to try to get this synchronisation automated so that we do not have double-enter this data in two systems.

Another issue we have not satisfactorily resolved relates to instances when follow-up questions to requests are sent to the Queue. At the moment it is hard to monitor the same request made by two or more attorneys working on the same matter, so it may mean we are still duplicating certain research requests without knowing it. We also get requests where the attorney says that they would like a report done on X company in the same format as ‘last time’. But it can be difficult to locate the previous request, or to locate the actual report provided.

In some ways, we have also become a victim our own success, as now emails can come in over the weekend or overnight in the expectation that we are a 24/7 service. We have raised the expectation on how quickly we can turn around a project, which is very positive and reassuring on the one hand, as we receive repeat requests and the attorneys continue to use our services. However, this is something that we continue to monitor and react to, to ensure we are not back to square one in terms of having no control over workflow.

FINAL THOUGHTS

We have been running the Research@mofo centralised enquiry system for two years and we believe the system has been a great success.

Our clients now have access to a global research team and the types of request that come in can be handled by a researcher not necessarily based in the same office as the requestor, and we often have requests that come in that are large requests or time critical that can be handled by our team.

One of the greatest success stories is how we now manage large research queries, what we typically call ‘marketing queries’. For instance, someone from the marketing team may be working on a project and submit a list 100 or 200 companies. They might want information collated such as address, name of CEO, and other contact information. Previously we could spend a lot of time trying to locate colleagues who could help with the research, or we might just shoulder the query and spend hours doing all the research alone. We now have a tried and tested method of reaching out to the team to alert everyone that a big project request has come in and then creating what we call ‘child requests’, putting them in the Queue for people to claim in chunks. This makes effective use of our team, and also keeps individuals engaged with their work.

Use of the library has also grown. We can see that in the statistical reports, which provide concrete evidence to show the value our team brings to the firm. We also have much more visibility within the firm now and it's interesting to note that often an email gets sent through to Research@mofo and someone has remarked on the email chain ‘ask the library for help, they can do this, they've done something similar for me before’. We can also show that the library is called upon at all hours of the day and night, and we can show which external clients we provide work for.

The system has provided us with the opportunity to rebrand our team, and we have not only reintroduced our services to our attorney clients, but we have also expanded the services we offer such as analysed company reports.

The team works so well together now and we all participate in a collaborative spirit of teamwork. We know each other so much better and we know each other's specialities and preferences.

Each day brings an opportunity to learn something new and expand our growing skills and knowledge and it is a strange – and wonderful – feeling to be a solo librarian yet also part of a large, highly skilled, helpful, and friendly team.