Discount Tire’s National Litigation Program

Kicking the tires on an enterprise collaboration platform

It’s only natural to kick the tires on new technology when you’re laser-focused on efficiency. Any technology platform the National Litigation Program at Discount Tire relies upon to get them from A to B, so to speak, must be reliable, secure, and easy to use.

Discount Tire is the largest independent tire and wheel retailer in the US, operating more than 1,200 stores in 38 states. The company sells a lot of tires and wheels, but with that comes a certain amount of unavoidable litigation. “We’re blessed with a strong safety and risk program, so our litigation footprint is remarkably small,” says Chris Henrichsen, Senior Vice President of Risk Management and Litigation.

Still, like any other national retail company, the National Litigation team coordinates lawsuits throughout the country. For that reason, says Henrichsen, “We sought a centralized and intuitive platform for sensitive materials relative to litigation.”

That’s how Discount Tire’s National Litigation team landed in the Content Cloud. After 12 years with Box, the tires have worn well.

The benefits of the Content Cloud for a liability-focused team

Before Box, Discount Tire’s National Litigation team relied on hard drives and on-prem servers. Their original case-management platform was a common legacy choice for legally oriented departments and teams. With Brant Roberts, owner of legal technology strategy firm ESQ Legal Technology, Henrichsen was introduced to Box to tackle a laundry list of critical content needs.

Centralization of content
As a first priority, centralizing all litigation-related content on one platform enabled the National Litigation team to organize and manage their case content securely and efficiently. Through Box integrations and its API, the litigation team was able to see case content across a variety of their core applications, yet know their content was managed, administered, and secured in Box

Adaptability
A major selling point of Box is that it integrates so well with other tools and software. Henrichsen says: “Box is agnostic, whether people are on Google, Microsoft, Apple, Salesforce, or whatever.”  

Ease of collaboration 
As Henrichsen describes: “The collaboration piece is huge because we work with medical providers, opposing counsel, experts, and vendors. These stakeholders are nationwide and leverage disparate IT systems. Being able to simply send them a shared link and have it work seamlessly while the data remains centralized — that stuff is priceless.”

Compliance
Roberts says, “I appreciate the ability to offload some of the content storage services to a third party that I trust to have HIPAA and PCI compliance. With all those things in place, we can focus on assisting legal departments with integrations for their content as well as advancing technologies such as AI.”  

Security
Discount Tire also uses Box Shield, and Henrichsen reports that, with the constant change of security threats, having a dashboard to quickly recognize security risks is critical: “The major value of Shield is the ease to implement security and monitor traffic.” 

Governance
Permissions, retention, and classification all fall under the domain of governance and are equally important in managing content collaboration with outside firms and stakeholders. Henrichsen affirms, “This is especially important to the litigation team, as we needed the highest level of security.”

Best practice
As a technology consultant, Roberts is invested in making sure the content solution is implemented in the right way. That’s why Roberts leans into Box Consulting and account managers to ensure his clients follow best practices and take full advantage of all Box has to offer.

Cost
And finally, Henrichsen insists, “Governance was critical, but cost is always a consideration.”

Box was the answer to all of these needs. However, through the decade-plus since first leveraging Box, the National Litigation Program at Discount Tire has implemented further Box products and features to secure and optimize their use of the Content Cloud.  

Crucial collaboration with a range of external stakeholders

Discount Tire is a tire retailer, not a law firm. The core litigation team is small, but they work externally with 25 to 30 law firms nationwide on cases, along with the National Coordinating Counsel in Arizona (where Discount Tire is headquartered), which oversees high-frequency litigation tasks.

In addition, the National Litigation team works with core teams of outside experts in particular cases, and local counsel handle “jurisdictional-specific” tasks, including inquiries with medical providers and the processing of witnesses. Henrichsen says, “They understand the venue. They understand the law. And we need to associate with them for ethical and other reasons so that we can process our cases in those areas.”

With all of these external teams, Box provides a secure, easy way to collaborate with shared links and granular permissions settings on folders.  

All the integrations that matter to the matter

To the National Litigation Program at Discount Tire, a new case means opening a matter in their case management system, AdvoLogix, a key Salesforce app to orchestrate cases throughout the country. 

Henrichsen describes the process of launching a new case in the Content Cloud: “We open a matter in AdvoLogix, and Box is a tab in that matter, which otherwise would have been raw storage in the Salesforce platform.”

Box integrates with the team’s daily use of Microsoft and Salesforce products — in addition with the Box API, which provides the custom ability to manage, share, and receive content from other critical applications.  

Roberts says, “Box has a great repository of integrations which are easy to use. On top of that, the Box API is powerful, enabling us to manage and perform tasks that would take hours, even days without.”  

Ultimately, Henrichsen concludes, “It lets us work within one content platform. We open our application (such as Salesforce) and click on Box, and we quickly see all of our content.”

Streamlining up to 60 cases per year

When a new lawsuit launches, the litigation team opens a matter in AdvoLogix. Box Relay then automatically sets up the correct folders and files based on predefined templates. From there, external collaborators are given specific folder permissions as appropriate.

With 50 to 60 such cases a year, Box streamlines data collection tremendously. In a legal case, the discovery phase involves an enormous amount of document acquisition and review. Once, this would have meant tedious manual copying using hard drives or SFTP to transfer documents between parties. Now, through Box, external counsel, experts, and other stakeholders easily upload, review, and collaborate on gigabytes of data through shared folders.

If there’s a need to issue a medical request to a provider or opposing attorney, for instance, they are provided with secure access to a Box folder, as opposed to an unsecured attachment in an email which would have to be imported into the case management system manually. This efficient workflow, Henrichsen says, “is huge. Without it, our inefficiency would be multiplied. You can just imagine what it’s like sending documents around manually or via email. It’s a big drain on something that could be automatic.”

With all the content centralized on Box, anyone granted the appropriate level of access can get to files any time — even at the same time. But the litigation team can also set up strict parameters around document classification and retention, which is extremely important to identify and manage such a large set of legal content.

Embracing AI in litigation  

As GenAI becomes top of mind for all technology leaders, Henrichsen is thinking ahead about the future of the Content Cloud and the ways to apply AI. One of the ways he foresees using AI is to bring more efficiency to existing processes. Examples include summaries, highlights of meetings, and outlines.

The potential is vast. He says, “We’re thinking about everything and anything we can do with it. Bring it!”

Roberts feels the same, “We are incorporating AI in unique ways to provide competitive advantage to our clientele. Box AI is a great resource to securely leverage content already stored there.”

At the same time, Henrichsen admits, “Law firms are slow to adopt technology. This AI piece is going to catapult business. Unless you’re on board with it, and you know what you’re doing, you’re going to get left behind.”

Content on the go, all the time, everywhere

The final piece of the unstructured content puzzle, for Henrichsen, is mobility — specifically, Box Mobile for on-the-go content access. He says, “Mobility is enormous, and Box is phenomenal for our program. I love it. I don’t have an iPad or a laptop. I have a cell phone, and literally that’s how I roll: with Box on my phone.”

As more cases come to the National Litigation Program, Henrichsen sees the value of content continuing to increase, and the need to protect that content increasing at the same pace. He concludes: “The value around content rises. How do I protect the content? Shield. How do I now pull out information from that content and summarize it? AI. The areas that Box has gone into make total sense. They’ve made a name for themselves in the marketplace because of that.”

The top three things the National Litigation Team at Discount Tire loves about Box, according to Henrichsen:

• Support: “Box is constantly on top of things and I have a great relationship with my key contacts at Box. That’s huge; support is enormous.”
• Ease of use: “You have a platform that is just as easy to use as it is intuitive.”
• Customization: “We’ve engaged in Box’s backend with the Box API, administering hundreds of thousands of documents in secure and efficient ways.”

 

“Box has gone above and beyond to do a good job for the National Litigation Program at Discount Tire. We have comparable vendors we do business with and don’t get that kind of service! That’s critical.”

— Chris Henrichsen, Senior Vice President of Risk Management Litigation, Discount Tire