Legal Case StudyAutomating Business Processes for a 100-Year-Old Legal Business

  • Legal
  • industry Legal
  • year founded 1920s
  • location USA

The client is a family-run legal data business based in USA. The company offers a wide range of public record search services and performs foreclosure reviews as well as document filing procedures.

Challenge

The business in question is a small family-run business in the US that offers court background checks and prepares court notes in the legal niche. Traditionally, the industry is very conservative and relies heavily on paperwork. Many procedures are carried out by obtaining physical documents from the court as well as faxing, snail-mailing, photocopying, or archiving said documents.

Needless to say, with the advent of the digital age, the technology was already there to permit automation. But going from predominantly human-powered to a digital business is no trivial task.

The business in question provides the following services:

  • Running background checks for physical and legal entities.
  • Generating reports by request from customers.
  • Preparing court notes for interested parties.

When ObjectStyle began working with this client, their system consisted of a database and multiple desktop applications that used the database to produce reports, as well as some scripts and a web application (their public website). Over the years, the system had accumulated technical debt. When the client attempted to upgrade their Microsoft SQL Server, the database started to throw errors.

Considering that the database had been developed by different companies/contractors over a long period of time, the client’s representatives did not have full insight into the database’s design. It was time to look for a tech company that could take up the challenging task of debugging and upgrading the DB.

Solution

Results

Thanks to the RESTful architecture that was introduced while redesigning the website, the client has started to use APIs to onboard system corporate users (that rely on said APIs for data).

As of today, ObjectStyle has largely modernized the client’s tech base and automated their business process. The old database was fixed and upgraded and now works without errors. The old desktop app was replaced with a new web-based application - the migration was performed gradually and without interrupting the client’s operations.

Now the immediate goal is to finish automating the entire business process, from getting the required court documents to analyzing them, singling out the bits of information one needs for court notes, and preparing the very notes. That will lead to the client’s workflow being 100% supported by digital technology, and much less human effort will be required to deliver the same volume of services.

Technology stack

  • Apache Cayenne
  • Apache Tapestry
  • Amazon EC2 cloud platform, Amazon Lambda, Amazon S3
  • SQL Server/MySQL databases
  • Jasper Reports
  • React / Redux
  • Java 8 / JavaScript and jQuery

Time Span and Resources

Duration:

5 years 6 months

Effort:

49,500 man-hours

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