Customer Story
Ahlgren Law
Law firm saves big and stays true to its ethics
Ahlgren Law
Ahlgren Law
With 5,000 active cases, and more than 20,000 paper client files of over 3,000 pages in each file, this law firm set out to modernize their workflow. Learn how RICOH delivered cost effective digital solutions that helped the firm uphold its ethical standards.
For over 50 years, immigration law firm Ahlgren Law has been a cornerstone for Chicago-based family immigration defense. In 2009, the firm’s costs and document management were slowing progress and efficiency. Costs for storing files off-site were mounting, and retrieving files was both expensive and time-consuming.
At that point, the firm adhered to more traditional workflows, which were paper-heavy. Jonas R. White, COO and CTO, who joined the firm as a high school intern in 2009, played an important role in implementing streamlined solutions. “Over 20,000 files were in storage. Attorneys had to sift through boxes manually. If a client called asking whether they had been fingerprinted five years ago, it could take hours to confirm. Some of our files are 4,000 or 5,000 pages,” Jonas explained. “We used to flip through every single page,” he says.
The system was not working, and it was costing them a significant amount of money and time. “We were spending about $20,000 per year just to store closed files, and every time we needed to retrieve one, it was another $100. We would do that about eight to 10 times a month,” Jonas notes.
With clients coming back, we couldn’t schedule a consultation for about two weeks. Nowadays, we can schedule it within a week. We don’t have to wait. We can review the file and look at it quickly. We're able to quickly identify what we’re looking for. That’s saved us a lot of money. It’s almost incalculable how much money it’s saved. If I had to say, between $200,000 to $300,000 overall.
Now, the fully female-owned firm is one of the largest privately owned immigration firms in the city. Through these years, its transition from paper-heavy processes to tech-forward, streamlined operations has yielded significant cost-savings and improved client support, thanks to RICOH document scanners.
The new shareholders sought to overhaul their operations and their paper-based system. The firm chose a combination of Ricoh fi Series and RICOH ScanSnap Scanners. Because Ahlgren works on a fixed-rate structure, clients are not paying hourly. That meant processes needed to be optimized: RICOH scanners and document scanner software delivered.
The first step involved scanning those thousands of documents and making them searchable files for instant, massive time savings.
Dual Scanner Solution
Ahlgren began digitizing closed files using two fi-7700 flatbed scanners and then moved to scanning active ones. They use ScanSnap for client documents during attorney consultation. Ahlgren chose ScanSnap for its full-text search capabilities, and ease of use for their attorneys and staff.
It used to take them hours just to find the right information, Jonas recalls. But it was the ease of RICOH software and scanner customizations that transformed the processes over time. The software’s text recognition with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and instant searchable PDF file creation enables the group to search for exactly what they need and find information fast.
“Over 20,000 files were in storage. Since then, we’ve been able to scan and digitize all of them. Now, as soon as a file is closed, it gets scanned and digitized within the month,” says Jonas.
Jonas’ background in design thinking played a key role in helping them evaluate workflows and maximizing all of ScanSnap’s features and integrations. He explains that he left the firm and came back to his new role with an understanding of how well-implemented products optimized workflows. The COO/CTO particularly appreciated RICOH and ScanSnap’s excellent service and technical support.
Faster Training
The firm has also found that customized scanning profiles have made the process even more efficient. As Jonas notes, training used to require two to three days for how the firm digitizes their case files. But now it takes just a few hours to get new employees trained: The ability to set up custom profiles is key to their faster on-boarding processes.
Integration with SharePoint
These days, the firm no longer needs to fax documents. Instead, they securely share files via SharePoint, making document sharing, and expanded storage both secure and more cost-friendly. Jonas points out that they are now in the process of improving their indexing, with full indexing and custom tagging, for increased efficiency. This will enable Ahlgren to improve their overall search functionality within SharePoint, as well as more easily serve their customers.
The impact on the firm’s bottom line has been substantial. Ahlgren Law has saved approximately $200,000 to $300,000 over this time. Jonas says that because files aren’t stored at an offsite facility, it saves significant time and money (in retrieval and client support).
“With clients coming back, we couldn’t schedule a consultation for about two weeks. Nowadays, we can schedule it within a week. We don’t have to wait. We can review the file and look at it quickly. We're able to quickly identify what we’re looking for. That’s saved us a lot of money. It’s almost incalculable how much money it’s saved. If I had to say, between $200,000 to $300,000 overall,” emphasizes Jonas.
Thanks to ScanSnap and RICOH Scanners, Ahlgren Law continues to serve thousands of clients with the same level of compassion and expertise for half a century, and significantly more efficiency as they continue forward.
