Office of Legal Affairs offering new legal service request system
It is a New Year and the Office of Legal Affairs (OLA) has implemented a new legal service request system to perform intake. Most matters coming to OLA should be routed to the attorneys by submitting a legal service request through OLA’s website https://www.vumc.org/general-counsel/ or at www.vumc.onit.com rather than through emails, phone calls or other means. “We are using this new system to ensure our workflow process is more efficient, to help us track work progress and to communicate clearly with our customers,” said Michael J. Regier, General Counsel and Secretary. “The new system has an electronic approval process for matters needing approval and provides increased transparency to those requesting assistance from OLA.”
Like the previous intake system implemented in December 2018, the heads of departments and senior executive leaders in the Office of the President and CEO should approve most matters prior their submission to OLA. Now, this approval process will be electronic through system-generated emails requesting approvals. Certain matters which previously did not require prior approval may still be submitted without such approval: urgent patient matters, litigation, compliance, many procurement matters, many human resources matters and many Office of Contract Management matters. In addition, the new system will route matters for approval by heads of departments and executive leaders if there is very short turnaround time requested. The electronic approval process will occur behind the scenes based on the information inputted by the requestor and before matters are submitted to OLA by the new system. This more efficient process should make the experience of submitting work to the OLA more seamless for those requesting assistance. “I’ve already used the new system and it is an easy to navigate process,” said John F. Manning Jr., Chief Operating Officer and Chief of Staff.
The new system sends requestors email notices as a request for legal services moves through the approval process and eventually gets assigned to an OLA attorney. Moreover, each requestor has a personal homepage where she or he has tools that show the stages of the legal service request process for the requests she or he has made.
Instructions for the use of the new system can be found on OLA’s website https://www.vumc.org/general-counsel/ by pressing the Request Service button on the right side or at https://www.vumc.org/general-counsel/sites/default/files/Requestor%20LSR%20Guide%20.docx.
Questions and comments about the new system can be sent to dawn.r.crumel@vumc.org.
