How Gordon Food Service Reduces Time Spent Managing Legal Holds by 90%

As the largest family-operated food service distributor in NorthAmerica, Gordon Food Service takes pride in having maintained the same business approach throughout its 120 years of operation. Their mission is primarily driven by their innovative systems and the spirit and integrity of their employees.

And it’s precisely that innovative drive that keeps its legal team ahead of the curve when it comes to leveraging technology to increase efficiency and security. A small but nimble team of 8, they handle everything they can in-house, and they are always on the lookout for creative solutions to do more with less.

Like many in-house legal teams, Gordon Food Service was managing a host of legal holds on their own — although manually, across dozens of spreadsheets.Each hold would take 3 to 4 hours to get issued, which was only manageable with a low volume of holds per month.

But it all changed in 2020 when the GFS’ team started handling legal holds for their claims and insurance group. All of a sudden, their volume of legal holds increased by 5x, which led the team to immediately turn to technology to put an end to their spreadsheet-based process.

That’s when Logikcull Hold came into play.

After seeing it in action, GFS’ team realized Logikcull’s powerful simplicity was exactly what they needed. And, after only two days of using Logikcull Hold, they had fully streamlined their legal holds process.

The results followed right away.

With Logikcull, starting a hold now takes only about 20 minutes, which means Gordon Food Service was able to cut down their legal hold processing time by 90%. The team is also able to set automated acknowledgment reminders and release custodians with just a click.

But it’s not all about speed. Getting rid of their cumbersome spreadsheet system allowed GFS to make their legal hold process much more secure and defensible by reducing risks derived from human error.

At the same time, the team was able to generate long-term value by being able to maximize resources and keep most responsibilities and control in house.

“Logikcull Hold allows us to issue holds quickly, ensure consistency in our process, and manage our holds easily with much greater efficiency.”
Lindsay KolarCorporate Paralegal at Gordon Food Service

From Hours of Manual Work to Clicking a Button

Before implementing Logikcull Hold, Kolar needed to maintain 5 spreadsheets per hold, where she also kept track of acknowledgments, reminders, and released custodians.

With a minimum of 10 holds per month, Kolar ended up spending an entire week every month just drafting and issuing legal holds. But in GFS’ team, a process like this is always living on borrowed time.

“Love it. Takes me from five spreadsheets for every hold to just getting the information and going. I’m a spreadsheet person and it was getting out of control before.”
Lindsay Kolar
Corporate Paralegal at Gordon Food Service

When looking for a solution to automate legal holds, Kolar came across highly specialized tools. “They were a little too intense for us. Had too many bells and whistles that we would never use,” Kolar explains.

Logikcull’s simple but powerful functionality was exactly what they needed to succeed. What used to take a week takes less than half a day now. Issuing a hold now is as easy as collecting all the information they need, selecting the appropriate template within Logikcull, and clicking a button to send it to all the custodians.

Kolar’s team now relies on Logikcull to manage the entire lifecycle of a hold. They set automated reminders for acknowledgments and, when it comes to releasing custodians, Kolar just needs to press a button that says “Release” and immediately notifies everyone that the hold is over.

“We would have had to hire another paralegal had we not brought Logikcull on board. I just didn’t have the time for it.”
Lindsay Kolar
Corporate Paralegal at Gordon Food Service

Automating Legal Holds: Less Risk, Less Time, Fewer Costs

Since Gordon Food Service’s legal team implemented Logikcull Hold, they have issued more than 100 holds.This amounts to more than 360 hours saved or, in other words, more than a month’s worth of work that would have otherwise been spent on manual tasks.

With the right technology in place, Gordon Food Service was able to establish a much faster and reliable legal hold process. Thanks to their innovative spirit and long-term vision, GFS is now well-positioned to continue managing the entire legal process in house — bringing permanent efficiency, security, and affordability to their legal holds.

“Logikcull Hold allows us to issue holds quickly, ensure consistency in our process, and manage our holds easily with much greater efficiency.”
Lindsay Kolar
Corporate Paralegal at Gordon Food Service.

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