Disparti Law Group uses Microsoft 365 and Copilot to serve clients faster

Disparti Law Group is one of the largest personal injury law firms in Chicago, with four offices in two states, and has recovered more than USD1 billion for its clients. Skyeler Rivera has been with the firm for eight years, working her way up to her current role as Director of Intake. In that time, Rivera found a close alignment between her own values and the values that drive the organization. “Ultimately, we are here to help people,” Rivera explains. “I love that about my job, and that is what has turned this into a career for me.”

And yet, Disparti Law Group was working with outdated technology, on-premises infrastructure, and cumbersome shared drives, which didn’t reflect its commitment to exceptional employee and customer experiences. For a law firm committed to winning, the time was right to embrace new technology that could better support its mission.

Collaborating in real time expedites work for clients

Leslie Fry, Director of Human Resources at Disparti Law Group, leads a small team of two, responsible for everything from payroll to engagement surveys. Fry found collaboration to be inefficient in the days before Microsoft 365 became the standard at the firm. “In the past, we used shared drives that made simultaneous collaboration impossible, and overall, the systems could be slow,” recalls Fry. These problems were compounded by a managed service provider that was showing a decline in responsiveness. Today, Fry and her direct report can work together in real time in SharePoint, a process they have put into practice when the company moved to a new payroll software. “We are creating a lot of procedural documents for our payroll process,” Fry explains. “SharePoint has really streamlined how we work. It’s made our lives easier.” Today, Fry can make real-time suggestions as her colleague updates a document. “We definitely save time in the editing process,” she adds.

While employees are enjoying the effectiveness of the new tools, the positive effects are reaching clients too. In the past, attorneys and paralegals would work in downloaded files to calculate settlement amounts or liens, saving a new version each time and handing off their updates via email. “Everyone is busy, with very large caseloads,” says Rivera. “If someone forgot to save and share the latest version, it could result in their collaborators working in outdated documents.” Now attorneys and paralegals can be confident their documents are up-to-date in SharePoint.

Collaboration between external parties, such as opposing counsel or judges, has also moved to SharePoint. As a result, Disparti Law Group can better maintain security and eliminate point solutions like Dropbox. “Having everything stored under one roof in SharePoint saves our team a lot of time transferring folders over to a different platform,” says Madison McAnn, Director of Operations at Disparti Law Group. “It all contributes to a sense of efficiency on behalf of our clients.”

Improving employee satisfaction with next-generation productivity tools

Although Disparti Law Group remains focused squarely on its clients, employee experiences are no less important. “Our employees were very frustrated with our old software and systems,” says Rivera. McAnn agrees, noting that the volume of calls to IT has dropped since the move from on-premises Citrix servers to Microsoft 365. “We’re seeing our IT calls have been reduced,” she says. Improved efficiency and upgraded tools have had a direct effect on employee satisfaction. “Our employees are much happier now that we are using Microsoft 365,” says Rivera. “Everyone is empowered to get their job done in a timely manner.”

Microsoft 365 Copilot has also emerged as a major time-saving tool for employees across Disparti Law Group—one that is just getting started. McAnn uses Copilot to summarize her work, search for redundancies across job descriptions, and locate documentation within SharePoint. “We see a lot of potential to add Copilot to our training modules to help new employees locate what they need quickly,” McAnn says. Rivera also uses AI to streamline her daily work. “Copilot has been a huge help to me in every sense,” she says. Rivera, who uses the tool to help draft standard operating procedures in Microsoft Word, adds, “Something that used to take me an hour now takes 30 minutes with Copilot. I almost feel like I am cheating the system.” In the future, Rivera hopes to use Copilot to help intake specialists process potential cases quickly and accurately, using content from handbooks, emails, and resources across the law firm. “The role of an intake specialist is always changing, and I would love to use Copilot to help the team process claims faster without needing to involve a supervisor or director,” she explains.

For Rivera, the move to Microsoft 365 and the use of Microsoft 365 Copilot is just the latest iteration of Disparti Law Group’s commitment to its clients. “Our main mission here is doing everything we can to help our clients,” says Rivera. “Using the right technology supports us in that mission, because if we are not collaborating or multitasking efficiently, the result could be a delay in our client’s claim.” That delay could stymy everything from a car repair to resolving property damage. “Microsoft 365 and Copilot have proven to be the right technology to help us help clients,” concludes Rivera.

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