Leading immigration law firm leverages automation to enhance client service and business performance 

DALLAS; NEW YORK; SAN FRANCISCO – Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP (BAL), the leading immigration law firm in the world, recently announced it has selected UiPath, the leading enterprise Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platform, to continue its intelligent automation journey. Last year, BAL established its Automation & AI Development Center, which accelerates automation within the business processes that underlie immigration and global mobility. As the firm continues to evolve its use of automation, BAL will apply UiPath’s RPA solution across departments to maximize overall business performance. This will allow BAL to leverage technology to perform certain repetitive manual tasks and allow BAL personnel more time to invest into the customer experience.

As part of its strategic 2020 plan, the firm set out to identify a vendor that could partner with them and enhance their automation applications. After a rigorous research and evaluation process, BAL selected UiPath as their RPA vendor, namely for the company’s unique capabilities in the area of human-bot interaction – a criterion that BAL was particularly focused on to ensure easy onboarding and management of the solution amongst its employee base.

The firm also collaborates with UiPath partner Accelirate, which plays a critical role in the procurement and training process, offering BAL guidance from experienced RPA practitioners. With the help of Accelirate, BAL identified several internal processes to automate with RPA, such as new employee onboarding, managing client requests and streamlining time-intensive administrative and clerical tasks. The firm is also deploying UiPath in conjunction with its Cobalt® global immigration management platform, which includes the industry’s first mobile immigration app and enhances operational excellence and security throughout the global mobility process. By leveraging RPA to help manage these processes, BAL seeks to alleviate the burden of repetitive tasks so both internal and client-facing teams are able to focus on higher value and more customer-focused interactions.  This strengthens the underlying service relationship while also improving operational efficiency.

“With UiPath, we are delivering cognitive capabilities that go well beyond basic RPA areas, such as swivel chair web automation, document processing and form assembly. By adding UiPath to our data, machine learning models and supercomputing power in our Cobalt digital platform, we are in a unique position to continue delivering client service like no other firm,” said Vince DiMascio, CIO of BAL. “Partnering with UiPath’s advanced capabilities maintains BAL’s position as the technology and innovation leader and marks another first in the industry.”

“Delivering exceptional service and insight to our clients means investing in innovation and equipping our legal and operations teams with digital tools and the skills to use them. With UiPath, we increase velocity while creating capacity across our firm, enabling our people to focus on quality, strategy, and expert advice for our clients,” said Edward Rios, a partner at BAL and the firm’s Innovation Leader. “BAL is just the type of innovative organization we are eager to support, and we’re thrilled they’ve adopted our technology to further that innovation,” said Coenraad van der Poel, Head of the Americas at UiPath. “Our platform is meant to help companies focus on what they do best – bringing supreme products to market and delighting customers – and BAL is already doing just that. As the company continues to digitize its business, we expect their results with our solution will only get better.”

About UiPath
UiPath is leading the “Automation First” era – championing one robot for every person, delivering free and open training and collaboration and enabling robots to learn new skills through AI and machine learning. Led by a commitment to bring digital era skills to more than a million people, the company’s enterprise Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platform has already automated millions of repetitive, mind-numbing tasks for business and government organizations all over the world, improving productivity, customer experience and employee job satisfaction. Recently named by Comparably as the 6th happiest place to work and the 11th best company culture among large businesses, UiPath has become one of the fastest growing enterprise software companies in history. The company is backed by over $400 million in funding from Accel, CapitalG, Credo Ventures, Earlybird’s Digital East Fund, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Madrona, Meritech, Seedcamp and Sequoia.

About Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP
BAL is one of the world’s most recognized corporate immigration law firms, and is the Best Lawyers® “Law Firm of the Year” in Immigration Law in America for 2019. The firm is singularly focused on meeting the immigration challenges of corporate clients around the world in ways that make immigration more strategic and enable clients to be more successful. Established in 1980, the firm provides immigration expertise, top-notch information security and leading technology innovation like its Cobalt® digital immigration services platform. The firm entered into a strategic alliance with Deloitte UK to create the world’s first global immigration service delivery model. BAL and its leaders are highly ranked in every major legal publication, including Best Lawyers, Chambers, The Legal 500, and Who’s Who Legal. See website for details: www.bal.com.

Media Contact:
Emily Albrecht
Senior Director — Marketing & Communications
ealbrecht@bal.com
469-559-0174

Cobalt® provides global businesses with a premier destination
for strategic end-to-end case management

SAN FRANCISCO, February 6, 2018 – Today Berry Appleman & Leiden (BAL) LLP, one of the world’s largest immigration law firms, launched its next-generation Cobalt® digital immigration services platform. The new Cobalt features the industry’s first mobile immigration application, enabling anytime, anywhere case management across Android and iOS devices. In addition, the secure, cloud-based platform is ISO/IEC 27001 certified, features an intuitive, user-friendly interface and delivers a faster application speed that will accelerate the global immigration process for BAL’s portfolio of corporate clients.

“In an increasingly complex global economy, an effective immigration strategy is a competitive necessity for every company that does business internationally,” said Jeremy Fudge, BAL Managing Partner. “With Cobalt, today’s global mobility leaders can transform their global immigration processes to meet the challenges and opportunities of a digital age while giving their employees a more streamlined, differentiated experience.”

With its breakthrough app, user-friendly interface and top-notch information security, Cobalt makes it easier for BAL’s corporate clients to do their jobs, run their businesses and give their employees a great experience. Specific benefits include:

  • Employee Ease: An industry-leading user experience makes it easy for employees to check the status of their case anytime, anywhere. The ability to enter detailed passport information is automated through a scan of the barcode – all on their mobile Subsequent cases are even easier, as information intelligently flows from one case to the next. Action items make it clear what employees need to do.
  • HR Efficiency: Cobalt also provides an elegant and intuitive user experience for human resources users. Clear timeline views make it convenient to see the immigration status of any employee and the next steps for their case, requiring minimal navigation. In-app messaging streamlines communication with legal teams and provides a secure collaboration environment. An omni-search feature allows global mobility/HR leaders to search cases and employees from any page, and opening a case is a simple click away.
  • Business Advantage: The new app combined with Cobalt’s secure, cloud-based environment gives executive teams the peace of mind to confidently conduct global business. With access to on-demand reporting, BAL clients have everything they need to assess, manage and enrich their global immigration programs, in-depth or at a glance.

“For years, we’ve been at the immigration forefront, driving technologies that keep our clients ahead in a fast-changing world. It’s ingrained in our company’s culture to apply a technology and innovation lens to everything we do – and at every level – with an eye toward what’s next. With a product roadmap that embraces the latest, including Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and automation, this release is part of our agenda to bring clients inventive technology solutions designed to advance global immigration,” commented Fudge.

Also today, BAL released a new vision paper on the role of innovation in an increasingly complex global immigration environment. The paper outlines actions that today’s business and legal experts can take to stay ahead in a rapidly changing landscape. The full paper, “Innovation in Global Immigration Law: Where Expertise, Technology and the Human Experience Meet,” is available for download here.

About BAL
BAL is singularly focused on meeting the immigration challenges of corporate clients around the world in ways that make immigration more strategic and clients more successful. Established in 1980, the firm provides comprehensive services from 18 offices across six continents. BAL and its leaders are highly ranked in every major legal publication, including Best Lawyers, Chambers, The Legal 500, and Who’s Who Legal. Non-U.S. offices are operated by affiliated entities in those countries.

Media Contact:
Emily Albrecht
Senior Director — Marketing & Communications
ealbrecht@bal.com
469-559-0174