Bringing Order to the Law Business

Stibbe is a full-service law firm with over 150 specialists working in a team to provide a tailored service to Belgian and international companies and public sector clients.
Help+Manual helps Stibbe to document internal processes and procedures, as well as online help for in-house developed applications.

Company Profile of Stibbe Brussels

Stibbe advises its clients on the most complex legal issues. Together with its Alliance partners Herbert Smith and Gleiss Lutz, Stibbe is also perfectly placed to assist with cross-border or multi-jurisdictional issues.

Stibbe places great emphasis on the quality of the services provided by its lawyers. Every client's needs are different, every case is different, and they are treated accordingly. In order to provide value in their legal service, the firm believes it is essential to understand the client and its position on the market. So as to best meet the client's needs, the firm assembles ad hoc teams in order to develop client- tailored solutions.

Moreover, the firm distinguishes itself by the fact that all practice groups and departments share common objectives, working methods, information systems and the same approach to servicing clients. This allows Stibbe to provide high quality services whatever the practice area may be.

Help+Manual at Stibbe

Electronic documents are the core components of every knowledge driven business. Stibbe is no exception to that rule, as the need for quality documentation is felt perhaps most of all in law firms.

Help+Manual was first tested by the Stibbe ICT department in a quest to find a multipurpose editor for creating both HTML and PDF documentation. Slowly but steadily, it found its way into several other staff units.

Help+Manual meets a wide variety of documentation requirements at Stibbe. Apart from the occasional online help to be provided with in-house developed applications, it has become the preferred editor for a number of electronic documents used internally.

1. All staff units are using Help+Manual to describe their processes and procedures. These documents serve as reference material and are published on the corporate intranet in PDF format.
2. Help+Manual can be used as an inexpensive replacement tool for project documentation. At Stibbe, Help+Manual is also used by the ICT project manager to describe the functional and technical requirements of every project.
3. Vbscript extends the array of applications even more. Installing or launching applications can be done from within a H&M manual. The result is a seamless integration of an online help and an installation wizard.
4. The ICT staff was surprised to discover how easy it is in Help+Manual to author complex technical documents. The ICT trainer has turned H&M into his preferred tool for writing PDF user manuals, enriched with multimedia elements and Quiz questions. Manuals are posted on the corporate intranet. A link to the project source file allows the author to quickly edit and re-compile the source file.
5. Most of the documentation is produced in different languages at Stibbe. Help+Manual is used to produce one document per language version. Resulting PDFs are merged into one multi-layered PDF. Users can switch languages with the click of a button.

In brief, Help+Manual has become an important part of the information flow at Stibbe.