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What’s New — Key Details
- What BigHand Announced
- BigHand has introduced an AI-powered Email Routing engine within its Workflow Management platform. (bighand.com)
- It is built for cloud customers (i.e., its cloud-based workflow solution). (bighand.com)
- Importantly, this feature is offered at no additional cost. (bighand.com)
- How It Works
- The AI reads incoming emails sent to a centralized support inbox. (bighand.com)
- It identifies the nature of the request, extracts key details, and creates a task in BigHand’s workflow system. (bighand.com)
- The task is then routed automatically to the correct support staff member or team, without manual triage. (legalpracticeintelligence.com)
- As the system processes the email, all the information is turned into structured data, which feeds into reporting (e.g., “Process Reporting”) for real-time metrics like demand, capacity, turnaround. (bighand.com)
- Design Philosophy & User Experience
- BigHand emphasizes “zero behavior change” for lawyers: they keep using email as usual. No need to switch to a new interface. (bighand.com)
- The system is purpose-built for legal teams: routing logic, approval rules, and reporting are tailored to legal support workflows. (bighand.com)
- Because AI handles the email intake and routing, administrative teams can focus more on executing tasks rather than triaging them. (bighand.com)
- Performance & Impact Metrics
- BigHand reports that using Workflow Management (even before AI routing) leads to up to 39% faster turnaround. (bighand.com)
- With AI Email Routing, they expect even faster intake and reduced bottlenecks. (bighand.com)
- Because every request is now structured and reportable, firms gain better visibility into workloads, capacity utilization, and performance. (bighand.com)
- Strategic Context
- This AI Email Routing is part of a broader AI strategy: BigHand recently launched Cloud SR, an AI-powered speech-recognition engine. (bighand.com)
- It aligns with BigHand’s goal of improving legal operations without forcing major changes on how lawyers and support staff currently work. (bighand.com)
- BigHand also launched a campaign called “We’re Not Assholes”, emphasizing their commitment to making helpful, user-focused technology. (Legal Futures)
Case Studies & Scenarios
Here are possible or early-adopter–style case studies (based on BigHand’s announcement + product positioning):
Case Study 1: Law Firm Back-Office Efficiency
- Challenge: Support teams at a law firm receive a high volume of task requests via email (document production, travel, logistics, etc.). Manually reading, triaging, and assigning these emails is time-consuming and error-prone.
- AI Email Routing Solution: BigHand’s AI engine processes the email inbox, determines what each request is about, and automatically creates and assigns tasks.
- Impact: Administrative triage time is slashed; support staff spend more time delivering tasks instead of triaging; support request turnaround improves significantly.
Case Study 2: High-Volume Support Desk for Legal Ops
- Challenge: A legal operations team at a large firm or legal department has to balance many incoming requests while maintaining SLAs (service-level agreements) for support.
- AI Email Routing Solution: The AI routes support emails to appropriate people based on task type, priority, and capacity.
- Impact: Better workload distribution means fewer bottlenecks, faster SLAs, and no more “which support person should do this” guesswork.
Case Study 3: Managing Remote and Hybrid Support Teams
- Challenge: In a hybrid work environment, support staff are distributed, and it’s challenging to get visibility on who is working on what.
- AI Email Routing Solution: Every support request from email becomes structured in the workflow platform, and managers can see in real time who picked up what, backlog, capacity, etc.
- Impact: Improved transparency, more predictable resource allocation, and the ability to proactively reassign tasks.
Case Study 4: Adoption Without Disruption
- Challenge: Lawyers resist adopting new tools because they rely heavily on email and don’t want to change their behavior.
- AI Email Routing Solution: Because BigHand’s AI works behind the scenes and still lets them use email, there’s minimal disruption.
- Impact: Higher adoption, because lawyers don’t need to learn a new system; support teams get more structured data and automation without forcing change on the rest of the firm.
Commentary & Strategic Insight
- Smart AI, Not Forced Change
- BigHand’s strategy emphasizes augmenting existing workflows, not replacing them. As Eric Wangler (President) said, they listened to lawyers who “don’t want to change how they work — they work in email.” (bighand.com)
- This is a smart adoption tactic: instead of imposing a new interface, they let AI work in the background.
- Value Without Extra Cost
- Making the feature available without an additional license fee lowers the barrier for clients to adopt AI routing. (bighand.com)
- For many firms, this means immediate ROI in the form of saved hours and reduced administrative burden.
- Data-Driven Legal Operations
- By converting email requests into structured workflow tasks with detailed data, firms can get better insights into support demand, capacity, and turnaround. (bighand.com)
- This supports smarter decision-making about staffing, workload balancing, and process improvement.
- Risk & Adoption Challenges
- While AI reduces manual triage, there may be concerns about misclassification of tasks, especially with complex or ambiguous emails.
- Trust: support teams may want visibility into how the AI is making routing decisions — transparency will be important.
- Change management: even if lawyers don’t change how they send requests, support staff may need training to fully trust and leverage AI-assigned tasks.
- Competitive Edge
- BigHand is building AI into legal operations in a very domain-specific way (legal tasks, legal routing). That could be a differentiator compared to more generic workflow tools.
- Combined with their speech-recognition AI (Cloud SR), BigHand is positioning itself as a full-stack AI workflow provider for legal support teams.
Bottom Line
- BigHand’s AI Email Routing is a meaningful automation step: it removes the manual triage step for email-based task intake in its cloud workflow system. (bighand.com)
- The feature is free for cloud customers, and doesn’t force lawyers to change how they work — they can still email as usual. (bighand.com)
- It promises faster turnaround, reduced admin effort, and better reporting & visibility into support work. (bighand.com)
- Risks include misclassification, trust in AI decisions, and ensuring support teams adopt the new workflow.
- Strategically, this reinforces BigHand’s push to modernize legal operations with AI, not just by building new tools, but by making existing workflows smarter.
- Good idea. Here are some case‑study–style scenarios and expert-style commentary on BigHand’s new AI Email Routing feature, based on what BigHand has announced, plus real legal‑tech context. (Note: because it’s a brand-new feature, “real-world” use‑case data is limited; some of these are inferred from BigHand’s own messaging.)
Case Studies: BigHand AI Email Routing
Case Study 1: Centralized Legal Operations Team (Support / Admin)
Context:
A mid-to-large law firm has a centralized support/admin team that receives a high volume of “task request” emails from lawyers — things like document production, filing, or administrative support.Before AI Email Routing:
- Support staff manually triage the support inbox, read each email, interpret the request, then manually open tasks in BigHand Workflow Management.
- This manual step is slow, error-prone, and leads to bottlenecks, especially when many requests come in during peak hours.
After AI Email Routing:
- The AI engine reads each incoming support email, extracts the likely “task type” (e.g., document request, research, scheduling), and automatically creates a task in the workflow system. (bighand.com)
- It routes the task to the correct person / team based on the nature of the request. (bighand.com)
- Support staff no longer waste time manually triaging; they focus on completing tasks instead of sorting them.
Impact:
- Faster turnaround for support tasks, because triage is no longer a bottleneck.
- Better utilization of support staff: more hours on meaningful work, less on “reading inbox.”
- Improved operational visibility: every email request is now structured data, giving management insight into volume, type, and turnaround. (bighand.com)
Case Study 2: Remote / Distributed Team Management
Context:
A law firm operates in a hybrid or fully distributed model: legal support teams are spread across offices or are remote, making it harder to coordinate who picks up which task.Before AI Email Routing:
- With manual triage, tasks may get unevenly assigned; certain team members may be overloaded, while others wait.
- It’s hard for managers to get real-time visibility of who has what in their “to-do list.”
After AI Email Routing:
- Since every email is turned into a structured task with metadata (priority, type, origin), managers can see work distribution in real time via BigHand’s reporting. (bighand.com)
- AI helps route tasks not just based on content but also according to “which team/person has capacity,” optimizing workload. (BigHand mentions “workload balancing.”) (bighand.com)
- By removing manual triage, remote or hybrid support teams can work more autonomously and efficiently.
Impact:
- Better load balancing among distributed support staff.
- Less risk of task “falling through cracks” because the system is automating intake + routing.
- Greater transparency for operations / management.
Case Study 3: Adoption-Friendly AI for Lawyers
Context:
Lawyers often resist new tools. They prefer working in email and may be skeptical of AI-based systems. BigHand’s strategy is to “meet them where they are.”Before AI Email Routing:
- To use workflow tools, lawyers might have had to go to a separate UI, fill in forms, or log into a separate system.
- Adoption could be low, because it changes their routine.
After AI Email Routing:
- Lawyers can continue using email. BigHand’s AI reads the email, turns it into a task in the system behind the scenes. (bighand.com)
- There’s “zero behavior change”: no need for lawyers to learn a new tool or shift away from their familiar email workflow. (bighand.com)
- Because the workflow doesn’t change for them, adoption risk is reduced.
Impact:
- Higher adoption of workflow automation, because it doesn’t disrupt how lawyers work.
- Faster buy-in from legal teams: they don’t feel forced to learn something new.
- Legal ops / support teams get better structured data, without creating friction for lawyers.
Commentary & Strategic Insight
- AI That Augments, Not Replaces
- BigHand is positioning this AI feature not to reinvent how work is done, but to improve existing processes. As BigHand’s President Eric Wangler put it, they’re making current work more efficient instead of imposing a totally different workflow. (bighand.com)
- This is smart: legal professionals often resist big changes, and a “behind‑the-scenes” AI feels less risky.
- Data-Driven Legal Operations
- By converting unstructured email into structured workflow data, firms gain visibility into support demand (what types of tasks are being requested, peak times, backlog). (bighand.com)
- This supports better resource planning, staffing, and capacity decisions.
- Efficiency Gains Without Training Overhead
- Because there’s no new interface for lawyers, BigHand avoids costly change management and training programs.
- The AI acts as a “silent assistant,” doing the heavy triage work without requiring users to change their behavior.
- Free Upgrade for Cloud Users
- BigHand is offering the AI Email Routing at no extra cost for its cloud Workflow Management customers. (bighand.com)
- This lowers the adoption barrier and increases the value proposition of its cloud offering.
- Risk Considerations
- Accuracy: AI may misinterpret complex or ambiguous emails, leading to misrouted tasks or wrong assumptions.
- Trust: Support teams will have to trust the AI’s routing decisions; BigHand needs to provide transparency or proof of reliability.
- Over-reliance: Over time, teams might depend too much on AI triage, perhaps neglecting manual oversight — risky if the AI fails or misroutes.
- Change for support, not for lawyers: While lawyers have “zero behavior change,” support staff may need to adapt to a different intake process.
- Consistency with Broader AI Strategy
- The email routing is not standalone: BigHand previously launched Cloud SR (AI speech recognition) for its workflow platform. (Legal Futures)
- This shows a broader, multi-modal AI strategy: BigHand is automating across voice (speech) + text (email) to streamline legal operations.
- Client-Centric Product Design
- BigHand says they did “face-to-face listening tours” to figure out what clients (lawyers, operations) actually want. (bighand.com)
- This “design with clients” approach helps build features that actually solve real pain points rather than flashy but unused AI.
Bottom Line
- What BigHand’s doing: Introducing AI Email Routing to eliminate manual triage in legal support workflows. (bighand.com)
- Why it’s smart: It improves efficiency, gives better data visibility, and doesn’t force lawyers to change how they work. (bighand.com)
- Major benefit: Support teams save time; operations leaders get insight; lawyers still work via email.
- Risks: Accuracy, trust, and over-reliance could be issues — but BigHand’s approach seems built to minimize disruption.