Court filings for complex litigation, like a class action, can involve hundreds of citations using research pulled together by a team ranging from articling students to partners. As the case is developed, new versions require citations to be reorganized with every iteration. Coordinating everything so that the citations in the final version are formatted consistently, cross-references are correct, and the documents meet the court’s electronic filing requirements can involve long hours of work on tight deadlines. 

Gowling WLG had to prepare a complex class action for certification on a compressed timeline. CiteRight helped them do it faster, more accurately, and more collaboratively.

As Litigation Partner Brent Arnold explains, using CiteRight from the beginning of the case really paid off when documents needed to be updated and finalized for filing. “On something like a court filing, this is the work that ends up getting done in a hurry at the end. As I was going through it, I wasn’t having to factor in—now I have to go back and fix 200 citations. It certainly saved hours at a critical stage.” 

With CiteRight, intelligent automation turned those hours into minutes. Brent knows that this kind of work often happens at the last minute and causes a lot of stress. “Those hours are bigger hours—they’re the more stressful ones where mistakes are more likely to be made. The last thing you want is to be, at the last minute, trying to get all those citations correct, making sure they line up. So it’s not just about the hours saved—it’s also about the crises averted.”

When a lot of people are working on the same document without CiteRight, they tend to get in each other’s way, introducing mistakes by moving things around so that the citations are in a different order. Thanks to CiteRight, citations and cross-references automatically update so that nobody has to manually fix them.

Brent’s entire team used CiteRight to prepare the class action filing. He found that it took very little time, minutes in some cases, to get a new user familiar with the basics of the software. After a one-hour training session, new users were confident about working with it. 

CiteRight helps lawyers focus on strategy, not citations

Without CiteRight, manually updating citations can eat up a lot of time for articling students and juniors. Brent says, “They spend a lot of time and a lot of money on law school. And having them do very mechanical, routine work isn’t a good use of resources.” 

With lawyers—from juniors to partners—spending less time formatting and checking citations, they spend more time working on strategy. “Every second that’s not spent on a routine task is spent reconsidering, looking at another case, rereading, and making sure that what we’re doing cognitively make sense,” Brent says. For juniors, this can mean attending meetings that they otherwise miss because they’re making the last-minute changes on the draft while more senior lawyers talk strategy. CiteRight frees them up to participate more meaningfully in the file.

Even after the initial rush of certification, Brent knows that CiteRight will continue to add value to a long case like a class action. He says, “These class actions, we live with them for years, and with CiteRight we’re not having to go back and pull cases over and over and over again. You revisit research questions throughout the life of the file—and it’s seconds and minutes each time, but over time all that adds up.”

“There’s no reason to not use this on every case we have. It becomes part of your process and you look for opportunities to use it again if it makes your life easier.”

While a major case like a large class action makes the benefits of CiteRight obvious, Brent believes that smaller matters also benefit from it. “There’s no reason to not use this on every case we have,” he says, “because every case is going to involve research and is going to involve drafting of legal arguments that cite precedent. It becomes part of your process and you look for opportunities to use it again if it makes your life easier.”

CiteRight is a partner, not just a vendor

Once a firm adopts CiteRight, the value of it becomes very clear. But legal tech is booming, and with new products competing for firms’ attention it can be difficult to decide which tools are worth bringing in. Ginevra Saylor is the Director, Innovation and Knowledge Programs at Gowling WLG. She has been following the evolution of CiteRight since its inception, and she knows that it’s a product that makes a real difference to lawyers.

“I saw this grow from an excellent idea to an excellent product,” Ginevra says. “I’m looking for technologies that help us with quality assurance: anything that mitigates our risk or removes the possibility that we’ll make an error. I am also all about efficiency and improving processes. The efficiency not only drives down the cost for the client, which is extremely important, but it also gives our lawyers a fighting chance of seeing their kids once in a while.” During the first six months that CiteRight was available at Gowling WLG, users saved over 1,300 hours that would otherwise have been spent formatting, fixing, and updating citations, creating books of authorities, and preparing submissions that meet each court’s digital filing requirements. 

Ginevra also looks beyond functionality to assess the team that stands behind the product. “When I find a technology that potentially can improve our practice, I’m looking for efficiency, accuracy, all of that—but then when it comes down to it, a really critical part for me is a vendor who gets the business, who gets the issues, who gets what we’re struggling with. I’m looking for vendors who are really looking to grow their product by getting a lot of feedback from their customers.” She appreciates that CiteRight was developed by a lawyer, who understands the challenges law firms face.

Brent adds that the customer service from CiteRight has been exceptional any time his team weren’t sure whether the software could handle a particularly complex citation. “We just call up and get (Chief Customer Officer) Ariel on the phone and he fixes it for us in five minutes, and off we go!”

Gowling WLG has recognized that CiteRight’s combination of intuitive, easy to learn software that saves time, reduces errors, and allows lawyers to focus on strategy rather than paperwork—plus exceptional customer service and constant enhancement—is the foundation for a strong, long-term partnership that goes beyond the purchase of a software tool.