Major Transit Agency Streamlines Legal Service Delivery

As a large metropolitan transit agency serving over 36 million riders annually, this organization has an extensive legal department, but with many lawyers responding to legal requests via email, the organization’s legal processes lacked consistency and efficiency. To streamline its legal operations, the organization implemented ServiceNow Legal Service Delivery (LSD), partnering with Thirdera, to make the implementation a success. 

By implementing the intuitive and secure ServiceNow solution to manage legal requests, Thirdera helped the organization increase adoption of the new tool, address confidentiality concerns, and replace manual email tasks with automated workflows. Additionally, Thirdera provided training, workshops, articles, and checklists so that everyone had the information and resources they needed to use the new platform confidently. With Thirdera’s guidance, the organization implemented and fully deployed the custom LSD solution in just 12 weeks, rapidly improving practitioner productivity and enabling them to deliver legal services at the speed of business.

Key Challenges

	While the legal team had an existing enterprise legal management (ELM) solution to store critical documents, the tool was difficult to maintain and not intuitive enough for efficient legal case management.
	Their legal request process was particularly inefficient due to the team relying heavily on email. To reduce the time needed to fulfill case requests, the legal team needed intake forms that would allow them to access all the required information in one convenient place.
	Since the legal team was not well-versed in IT applications, they were initially hesitant to implement a new technology solution. With a heavy case workload, their availability to learn new technology was also limited. The team needed a simple, easy-to-use solution—and a partner that could provide them with the training and support they needed to feel comfortable using the new platform.
	Security was a significant concern for the lawyers. Because they viewed ServiceNow as a traditional IT service management (ITSM) tool, the team wanted to ensure it could meet their unique legal requirements, maintain client confidentiality, and restrict visibility to specific users.

This organization's legal team was busy supporting the transportation agency with nearly 4,000 employees and millions of riders each year. With 18 lawyers working across five different practice areas, the organization needed an efficient, standardized legal process to help its legal practitioners reduce the time spent on non-core tasks. While the organization used an enterprise legal management tool to store legal documents, that tool was not sophisticated enough to use for legal case management. As a result, the lawyers leaned heavily on email to field and manage employee legal requests—an overwhelmingly manual, time-consuming process.

While a better process could save the lawyers time, the legal team was naturally hesitant to change because they were unfamiliar with traditional IT solutions like ServiceNow and already had significant work demands. Adding to their workload could lead them to abandon the platform quickly. With case confidentiality also a top concern, the legal team needed to ensure any new tool could limit visibility only to the legal team.

Our Solution

To overcome these challenges and enhance legal operations, the organization decided to implement ServiceNow Legal Service Delivery and Legal Request Management. With a short timeline of 12 weeks to deploy the ServiceNow solution, the organization turned to Thirdera for its ServiceNow expertise. Thirdera’s technical and business experts customized the ServiceNow solution to address the legal team’s unique requirements while providing them with the training needed to drive usage and satisfaction.

For the organization, it was critical to keep the solution as simple as possible to avoid overwhelming the legal team. To this end, Thirdera developed a legal service catalog—a single, easy-to-use portal through which legal support could be requested and managed. Since only specific groups of employees can request corporate legal services, Thirdera also limited catalog accessibility to authorized requestors.

To ensure the solution was purpose-built to meet the legal team’s specific needs, Thirdera also held regular workshops with assigned points of contact from the legal team. This minimized the time and involvement required from the broader legal team. During these workshops, Thirdera worked closely with the points of contact to get critical information needed to create an effective service catalog—such as what types of requests it should accommodate, what groups should have access, and what information they needed to capture.

The Result

The entire legal request process has been streamlined by eliminating manual steps and automating intake workflows. Cases are now automatically routed to the right lawyer in the proper practice area. Legal practitioners have all the necessary case details from the get-go, eliminating the need for endless follow-up emails to ask clarifying questions. As a result, lawyers can spend less time chasing down information and more time on high-value legal tasks.

Thirdera’s implementation support and hands-on training have empowered the organization’s legal team to deliver a smoother, more efficient legal service experience. With the combined power of Thirdera and ServiceNow, the organization’s lawyers have significantly improved their productivity and reduced the time needed to fulfill legal requests—without adding to their already busy workload. As the organization’s Senior IT Project Manager noted following the implementation, “My experience with Thirdera has been very positive, and I can sum it up in three words: Competence. Commitment. Customers.”

About Thirdera

As the largest global pure-play ServiceNow partner, Thirdera is a trusted Elite ServiceNow partner focused solely on improving and innovating the way our customers leverage the ServiceNow platform. Our experts possess authoritative capabilities and skillsets spanning the entire Now Platform. This extensive platform expertise allows us to understand our customers’ needs and deliver tailored solutions that solve business challenges.

Contact us today to discuss your next project, and enter a new era of ServiceNow partner experience.