A complex verification project

The Corporate and M&A team at Macfarlanes needed to verify an extensive prospectus within a tight timeframe.

The project required coordination across approximately 100 verifiers from different organisations: lawyers, investment bankers, and clients. All working on hundreds of pages within three months.

Mark Slade, Senior Counsel at Macfarlanes, recognised this as an opportunity to enhance their verification approach and deliver an even better client experience.

Enhancing the verification process

Their existing process involved manually organising statements through tables and verifying them systematically. 

Communication typically involved multiple email exchanges to clarify verification guidelines and coordinate across teams.

“Communication during this process involved a lot of email exchanges to request changes and clarify verification guidelines,” explains Associate Sarvenaz Mirbaghery.

Real-time visibility and enhanced coordination

Atticus provided the enhanced capabilities the team was looking for.

“The thing I really loved about it was being able to track progress in real time,” says Slade. “It is very helpful to be able to say this is exactly where we are and here are the particular areas that need attention.”

The platform enabled senior counsel to provide clients with precise updates. Associates could see exactly which statements needed attention. External verifiers could check statement history and confirm updates were made as requested.

The capabilities that enhanced their process

Several specific features improved the team’s existing workflow.

Streamlined bulk actions

The team could perform actions and select annotations efficiently, rather than manually copying and pasting annotations into tables.

Enhanced organisation through tags

Tags helped filter statements and quickly identify which elements needed attention across hundreds of pages.

Improved version control

When new drafts arrived, the versioning process quickly identified changed statements without requiring extensive manual checking.

“Having Atticus and all the documents on one platform showed immediately that the timeframe was achievable,” notes Associate Christopher Perera.

Enhanced efficiency and collaboration

The results demonstrated the value of the new approach:

• 100 verifiers working efficiently across multiple organisations
• Hundreds of pages verified within the three-month deadline
• Enhanced progress tracking providing clear visibility for all stakeholders
• Improved collaboration through direct comments on specific statements
• Smooth external coordination with straightforward onboarding for all organisations

“The tool was well received by external users, and once they had the training they got onboard easily,” says Mirbaghery.

“You can see which people are working in the document and confirm the work is progressing effectively,” adds Slade.

A product that saves time and increases collaboration

When asked for the biggest benefit of using Atticus, Slade highlights: “The time saving and the user friendliness not just for us but for the client as well.”

Perera emphasises: “How collaborative it was, having everything on one platform.”

For Macfarlanes, the project demonstrated how the right tools can enhance established processes to deliver even better results for clients.