Jeff Daniels can be plenty convincing. Brian Schrader says it was a commercial promoting Michigan business featuring the Chelsea-based actor that helped him decide to locate the Southwest Michigan branch of his software company in Kalamazoo.
Business Intelligence Associates, Inc., President Schrader, 39, co-founded the company in 2002 with business partner Alon Israely. Located along I-94 near the Oakland Drive exit, the local office offers a suite of software product services that pick up the plodding pace of litigation for the law firms and businesses that are BIA clients. BIA has offices in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C. and Kalamazoo.
BIA was ready for a major expansion of its document review operations when it began to investigate the possibility of locating in the Kalamazoo area.
"I saw one of Jeff Daniels commercials promoting business development in Michigan. We talked to the Michigan Economic Development Corp., did some site visits, and three or four months later we moved in." That was October, 2008.
Today, BIA's Kalamazoo and New York offices are the company's largest in terms of space and number of employees. Altogether, the company employs 75 people. Schrader says he and Israely are very happy with the high caliber of the local workforce.
The two men founded BIA based on the idea that the electronic gathering and analysis of information for use in litigation saves money and valuable time for law firms and their clients.
"We provide a suite of software products managed by attorneys to make the information-gathering less costly and time-consuming," Schrader says. "We provide both services and software to corporations and law firms having to do with their litigation needs."
Staffing levels fluctuate with the amount and complexity of information and documentation gathering the company does at any given time. The Kalamazoo office has a core base of 20 employees -- mostly attorneys -- who are assisted by up to 60 temporary workers as dictated by the workload. Schrader says BIA partners with employment agencies such as Kelly Services to augment their standing employee base.
"The overall idea is that there's not always enough business to keep people busy everyday," Schrader says. The Kalamazoo offices ultimately could accommodate up to 250 people.
BIA opened its Michigan office just ahead of the recession and the company experienced the same slow down as other businesses. Schrader says, however, the Michigan office did more business in the first quarter of 2011 than all of 2010, which may signal the need for additional employees in the future.
BIA's Kalamazoo office is a document review site. After all of the necessary documentation for a case is collected it is then analyzed by BIA staff to determine its relevancy to specific litigation. For example, Schrader says a total of 2.5 million collected documents could be winnowed down to 400,000 in preparation for the review process.
Parties to a lawsuit must collect large amounts of information from individuals connected to those suits in order to develop their case. When litigation involves a company the size of General Motors, for example, representatives of the company collect information from managers and factory officials that requires contacting literally hundreds of people spread throughout the world.
"We have automated software which collects and collates all that information," Schrader says. "We analyze all that data which might be relevant to the case without having to go through every single document.
"It sounds really, really boring, but it's not."
Schrader's idea to blend his passion for computers with his law degree began when he was still in elementary school. At the age of 7 he got his first computer and began programming. After graduating from New York Law School in 1998 he focused on corporate litigation for five years before founding BIA.
"It was the right moment in time when the Internet bubble was there and I was involved in corporate litigation and saw much that was being missed," Schrader says. "I got together with a couple of lawyers, technologists and forensics people and we focused on consulting, litigation and forensic work."
Everything from employee theft to harassment complaints were included as the company built up its software development.
Now, access to the software is by subscription which is easily accessed on the Internet. Fees are established on a per use basis.
Larger firms and corporations are BIA's typical customers, although there are one- or two-attorney firms that also use the software. Different price points make it easier for people with smaller budgets have access and that levels the playing field, Schrader says.
"We had one case where a husband and wife who owned a company were suing their daughter and son-in-law who had left their company to start a competing business," he says. "In reality, every lawsuit requires the type of work we do."
State-of-the-art security measures are in place to protect the data gathered from potential hackers, too.
The company's collective workforce of attorneys is made up of recent law school graduates as well as those who have been with BIA for 10 years or more.
Schrader says not everybody who receives a Juris Doctorate -- a law degree -- wants to work for a law firm.
"It's a choice to do this as opposed to the traditional practice of law," Schrader says. "We can be more flexible and less demanding at times and some people like the idea of not having to deal with clients.
"When you leave at five o'clock you're done. A lot of moms find this more conducive to their family life."
However, there are times when a particular job requires late nights or weekends.
Schrader says his company will continue to focus on new and innovative product development and seek out opportunities to expand its nationwide and international presence.
"There was a point in time when we needed to have a lot of local offices," he says. "Now we're focused on expanding our existing offices."
Jane C. Parikh is a freelance reporter and writer with more than 20 years of experience and also is the owner of
In So Many Words based in Battle Creek.
Photos by
Erik Holladay.
David Decker, Chief Operating Officer of BIA Kalamazoo
Phil Shane, a Quality Control Manager at BIA, works in the office located at 950 Trade Center Way.