At the forefront, focused on solutions
FourLines is a division of Cassels that assesses, pilots, and implements streamlined workflows, specialized staffing models, and the most current technology to improve both the quality and timeliness of our legal advice and related services. It is both a re-imagining and an extension of our service offerings, built to keep up with your needs and the shifting demands of the market.
WHY FOURLINES?
FourLines refers to the solution to a traditional pen and paper puzzle: to connect nine dots arranged in three rows using only a continuous set of four straight lines. Finding the correct answer requires thinking “outside the box” — both literally and figuratively.
“The pace of change and volume of emerging technologies can be overwhelming. By engaging FourLines, we can focus on growing our business.”
– Client Testimonial
OUR APPROACH
Technology challenges us to continuously adapt and improve our approach to the practice of law. Our belief is that it takes more than the newest software or high-cost consulting to meet that objective. Modern problem solving requires a substantive change in approach when it comes to leveraging technology to produce the best results.
Our division provides direct access to a diverse and integrated team of experts, market-leading technologies, and client solutions — the common denominator being excellence in our service delivery.
Process
Continually analyzing our legal service delivery processes, identifying inefficiencies, and developing or implementing the architecture required to drive sustainable cost-savings and value.What’s Market? Current and relevant expertise at your fingertips — immediately. Our FourLines team has architected a means of classifying and capturing the historic and rolling intellectual capital of the Firm in meaningfully searchable collections by using existing capabilities within our document management system and other tools.
Client Reporting. Improved production, delivery, and storage of client-facing reporting materials on every Firm transaction. Our streamlined and “paper-lite” workflows ensure that reports are generated immediately upon the conclusion of a matter, and our easily accessible client extranets make them available on demand and on a self-serve basis.
Matter Intake. Intake workflows provide clients with access to our intuitive automation platform. This client-led, questionnaire-driven process generates relevant documents based on your responses, initiating collaboration between your team and our industry group experts at the appropriate and most cost-effective time.
Compliance. Legislative amendments require companies to monitor their risk through ongoing compliance. For example, our Corporate Services team recently leveraged an automated FourLines solution to provide clients with a means to prepare and maintain registers of “significant individuals” of private companies in various jurisdictions.
People
Bringing intra-preneurial spirit, diverse perspectives, and deep experience in substantive areas of law, project and change management, legal ops, and legal tech and innovation, to ensure effective outcomes and client satisfaction.- Partners of the firm with varied industry experience, working in collaboration with our lawyers, paralegals, and law clerks.
- Experts in legal lean sigma, project management, change management, knowledge management, information technology, and data analytics.
- In consultation with respected vendors in the legal market, professionals dedicated to developing highly specialized expertise on the various FourLines tools and technologies.
Time and Cost-Savings. Tools alone cannot capture the full potential for improvement that our FourLines approach can. In two of our disciplines, our studies show that leveraging the industry-standard technology alone results in time savings of roughly 40 to 50 percent, while layering on our alternative staffing models results in cost savings of 75 percent or more relative to standard hourly rates.
Project Management. We assign dedicated project managers to each transaction management and document review engagement. Oversight by trained professionals guarantees successful completion — including improving productivity and cost certainty — but has also shown a measurable improvement in team morale.
Right-Staffed. All tools require both initial training and frequency of use to properly capitalize on investment. We foster specialized expertise and ensure that the “right” person performs each task. As the beneficiary of our team’s expertise, our legal professionals can focus on their respective areas of expertise — a combination that provides the greatest value.
Technology
Navigating the complexity of the legal tech landscape, deliberately and creatively applying appropriate technologies internally, and collaborating with our clients through leading-edge tools that enhance all aspects of legal service.Client Extranets. Addressing the inefficient production of high-volume agreements, we leveraged a user-friendly document automation tool to create customized client-facing sites. Capable of housing automated versions of bespoke agreements, these sites have both improved document production for our clients (saving an average of 80 percent in drafting time) and reduced potential for error.
AI-Assisted Document Review. Artificial Intelligence is transforming due diligence and similar contract review requirements in the legal industry. We were early adopters of AI-assisted technologies for document review and have honed our expertise to extract relevant information from a large volume of highly diverse document sets with incredible speed (60–90 percent less review time) and improved accuracy.
Collaborative Transaction Management. We provide direct access to software that streamlines the lifecycle of every transaction. Our team spends an average of 30 percent less time per transaction by eliminating manual, often administrative, transaction-related processes, such as coordinating execution and generating closing books.
Consultation
Drawing upon our expertise to solve challenges in partnership with our clients and support their efforts to effect change; leverage data, assets, and intellectual capital; re-imagine workflows; manage risk; and research and implement scalable solutions.Strategic Growth. Our clients are under pressure to optimize processes, people, and technologies, while navigating day-to-day challenges related to business growth. We have partnered with our clients to develop and implement strategic plans related to their legal operations teams and related functions, allowing them to focus on the successful operation and growth of their businesses.
Technology Audit/Roadmap. An analysis of how technology can support an organization’s business strategy and priorities is essential. We have assisted clients with prioritizing, process mapping, and planning for near- and long-term technology implementations, providing recommendations related to vendor reputation, maturity of tools, potential integrations, and identification of redundancies.
Tools to Facilitate Working Remotely. Our team developed a series of communications to support businesses working remotely, highlighting features of existing and no- or low-cost applications that, among other results, boost productivity, reduce paper, and improve collaboration.