Briefing: The parallel advantage – Brian Kenneally on real-time collaboration at Bundledocs
Brian Kenneally, CEO at Bundledocs, speaks to Briefing about how stepping away from linear workflows and embracing real-time, controlled collaboration can help firms minimise bottlenecks and risk
Collaboration across multiple teams and organisations is a core component of legal work. However, as the number of documents and stakeholders on a case increases, many law firms struggle to work efficiently while maintaining compliance — especially when different roles and levels of responsibilities are involved. As a result, they end up trapped in linear workflows, where documents are passed from one stakeholder to the next, raising the risk of delays and security breaches.
Bundledocs became aware of this problem soon after it launched its document-bundling product in 2019. “You have various parties at different points in the process needing to get involved and the way many firms are doing it is in a disjointed, asynchronous manner. Stakeholders are sitting waiting for the review to go back to them, so they can complete the next stage,” explains Brian Kenneally, CEO at Bundledocs.
He points out that, while this method is widespread, it leaves firms vulnerable to delays, compliance gaps and versioning issues, increasing the risk of serious oversights that can impact both the client experience and the firm’s reputation.
The proliferation of technology tools seen in recent years has made this an even more complex issue. “Many firms are probably inundated with systems they use for different parts of their workflow. However, the danger of some collaboration tools is they’re good at collaborating, but they’re not ensuring compliance, and you can’t risk that, especially in the legal world,” notes Kenneally.
Parallel lines
For Kenneally, it’s crucial for firms to move from linear to parallel workflows to increase efficiency, minimise fragmentation and avoid bottlenecks that could compromise the quality and delivery of their work. Crucially, their choice of software should reflect that collaborative approach: “You work together, you talk to each other, documents go forwards and backwards, so you need a product that’s built for this and that understands how legal teams work. That’s the key,” he says.
To help firms ease into parallel working, Bundledocs recently launched Review: a single collaboration platform integrated into their core product that enables users to work together on the same bundle of documents compliantly and in real time, removing the need for multiple tools and minimising the risk involved in sharing files across less secure channels.
“As long as they have the right permissions, everybody sees what’s going on at the same time and knows where they fit. So, if changes are made, you see it automatically — you don’t have to wait to be told. In a linear workflow, you do, because you’re only working when it’s your turn,” Kenneally elaborates.
This increased visibility is also crucial for the client experience: “Knowledge puts you to rest. So, when you’re collaborating and you bring your client in, they’re aware of the process. They can see and understand what’s going on and if there are delays. It’s the lack of information that’s the killer,” he highlights.
This article originally appeared in Briefing. Read the complete article here.
To learn more, visit: bundledocs.com
