• Case Study

Opportunity:

This Am Law 100 labor and employment firm is comprised of nearly 900 attorneys across the globe, and has an exceptionally large immigration law practice in the Southeast U.S.

The firm’s Senior Manager of Records and Information Management oversees management of all physical and electronic client and administrative records that are created by attorneys and staff throughout their lifecycle firm-wide.  Forrest Solutions was engaged with the firm, successfully providing administrative services support in the New York and D.C. offices.

In September of 2020, the firm was presented with an opportunity to help its immigration clients. The U.S. government had launched the AOS surge project, where individuals who currently work in the US under the H-1B visa and other visa programs to submit applications for permanent residency.

However, with a short filing period from late September to the end of October and documents of 500 to 1,000 pages, and the expectation of over 5,000 applicants, it was clear that completing this process on behalf of the firm’s clients was going to be a large undertaking.

The Senior Manager of Records and Information Management was called to spearhead the project and began the RFP process right away—and included Forrest Solutions in the field of competitors.

In the initial rounds of the RFP, some of the other large, national vendors told the firm that they could not complete the project with the time constraints, job duties, and expectations. One company, however, never said “no.”

“I was skeptical about how a provider could deliver given our needs and time constraints, but Juan Pazmino from Forrest Solutions simply said, ‘We can do this, just leave the details to me.’  Forrest quickly emerged as the obvious choice,” the Senior Manager of Records and Information Management said.

Process:

Firm leadership was able to negotiate with another subtenant in their office building had some swing space, and within four days, Forrest Solutions recruited and onboarded 30 employees to scan and manage the records, deliver the files, and perform other duties as needed. They provided imaging specialists and project managers for two shifts, six to seven days a week. In addition, Forrest Solutions provided the equipment needed to complete the project.

Over the course of a three-week period, firm leadership and Forrest Solutions worked together to receive packages coming in from FedEx and UPS, some sent overnight. With processes and checklists in place, the team identified packages of records and issues, and then Forrest Solutions would pick them up, take them to another floor for operating, stage them in alphabetical order, then pulled the files and records to scan the documents onto a shared drive that the firm set up, and then returned the package after QC process to ensure the documents were all complete.

These thousands of documents were processed under strict deadlines, and to complicate the operations further, all of this took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, which created a multitude of challenges including desk spacing, equipment spacing, wearing masks, entering and exiting of the building, and more.  For instance, as deadlines began approaching and many applicants became unable to mail necessary documentation on time, the team quickly changed gears and went from scanning and managing paper documents to receiving electronic documents and then printing and assembling them for processing.

Result: 

In the end, the project was a success and the firm’s clients were provided superlative service.

The firm’s Senior Manager of Records and Information Management concludes: “I was extremely impressed with the ability of Forrest Solutions to meet our needs on  no notice. They provided excellent project managers, delivered well beyond what they were initially asked to do, and stood up and deployed the full operation with incredible efficiency.”

“I would recommend them unhesitatingly in the future. I consider them at the top of my list of service providers.”