The merger of American and British firms that resulted in our legal firm today – Mayer Brown LLP – brought legacy companies with them for all manner of services. While my lips are sealed regarding names, suffice to say that both the US and the British parts of the new firm used internationally well-known companies to help manage their documents and information. Neither of them was doing a good job. Bugbears included poor customer service – from one of the incumbents it was from a call centre where operators were helpful but not in touch with either our specific needs or where our documents were stored or how, in short, not knowledgeable industry professionals. The other wellknown American business was particularly poor in meeting delivery schedules and particularly good at losing documents. My colleagues at the time really felt that they had to fit in with the companies’ processes rather than the other way round. As for their precious documents and internal clients’ reputations, they were in the lap of the gods.

By the time I joined Mayer Brown around seven years ago, Restore had been managing documents for the Records Management team for nearly ten years. We store tens of thousands of archive boxes across 13 secure units at Restore’s Paddock Wood facility. The members of the team we speak to know what we as a business do, know which documents are stored in which unit and swiftly organise odd emergency deliveries, over and above the twicedaily deliveries that happen as a matter of course. What I really like is the team’s responsiveness. On the very rare occasion there’s a document that’s not immediately locatable, they’re on it, they take it as a personal failing if they don’t know where everything is, instantly. In my experience, with other storage companies you could wait days to hear back.

Four years ago Mayer Brown did look at the document management market again. After all, the volume of boxes we store represents a significant cost. Putting the work out to tender made us realise that the level of customer service Restore provides is unequalled elsewhere and they were flexible in their approach to costs, finding ways of reducing them and tailoring the re-newed contract to our benefit.

Another of the elements of the tendering process was our desire to go online for file ordering and tracking. Restore’s FileTrak software made them an attractive option, over and above their customer service and good people, since, at the time, it was the only package that could interface with our datasharing system, a system that was wedded to Mayer Brown’s US-based Legal Key software. FileTrak can cherrypick the best from both systems. And, of course, should we ever want to fulfill some of our wishlist items – such as creating electronic files for high usage areas like real estate or a digitisation programme for all our archive documents – Restore has a great track record with us and would have ample scope to help us, with their large scanning division and experienced technicians.

An increasing trend stemming from US legislation is for global American businesses to need to know exactly which documents are stored in which facility. This requirement does, in fact, entail a full audit, inspecting every unit where documents are stored for security, compliance, flood-risk, fire-risk– including checking the local fire station – and so on. Thankfully, the Restore team couldn’t be more helpful in giving me access, supplying technical details and assisting me with writing up my report – thus keeping our US clients satisfied and compliant with their stringent regulations.

This year, the four members of the Records Management team here at Mayer Brown intend to really get on top of housekeeping so that we achieve that ‘less paper’ office we all dream of. Having less paper around is just one aspect of our intention; we have compliance, continuity, fire risk, reputational risk and security to consider – all of which means we need to turn paper documents round quickly.  Thankfully, the Restore team couldn’t be more helpful in giving me access, supplying technical details and assisting me with writing up my report – thus keeping our US clients satisfied and compliant with their stringent regulations.

• Improved compliance
• Supported enhanced customer service
• Provided monthly management information reports
• Enabled a digital ready service