Global Law Firm Meets Client Service Challenge

Even though its client list reads like a who’s who of the Fortune 500, the legal firm of Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky knows it can’t simply rest on its laurels. Instead, the firm has continually looked to improve the ways it delivers legal solutions to its clients, a strategy in which electronic information management systems already played a big part.

“What we produce for our clients is the knowledge and wisdom that lives in our attorneys’ heads,” says Keith Berkland, applications development manager for Dickstein Shapiro. “If we can shorten the knowledge-transfer process and share our experience, it makes all of our attorneys more productive and provides a valuable service to our clients.”

In the mid-1990s, the law firm invested in electronic document management by deploying a Hummingbird solution. Its IT infrastructure technology was rated number 9 out of 132 firms around the country and the strategy helped Dickstein Shapiro remain as one of the top 15 law firms in the Washington, DC, area. The firm has a globe-spanning list of clients including AT&T, Hitachi, Oracle, NEC and Raytheon, just to name a few.

“Our early IT work involved linking people’s knowledge to electronic data repositories of knowledge,” Berkland said. “It’s been highly successful inside the firm and the bedrock of our IT efforts over the past eight years.”

Share More Information with More People

But in 1999, an internal technology team consisting of attorneys, researchers and technical staff started looking for ways to build upon its successful IT operations, to bring even more knowledge-sharing and cohesiveness to its organization. Moving to Web-based technologies, Berkland says, was a natural progression.

“We started looking at portal technology to bring all of our knowledge management technology together in a more meaningful way,” Berkland says. “And a Web-based platform provided a perfect learning environment for our attorneys.”

Specifically, the law firm was looking for a software solution that would help it share data not only on a wider internal basis, but with outside entities as well, a requirement that demands a flexible, scalable and secure solution.

Gathering its attorneys’ knowledge and experience into portals, Berkland says, was an elegant solution, since it provided a single point of access for data, documents, processes and applications that could be accessed securely from any location with simply a Web browser. The thin-client structure also gave more freedom to the administrators, who didn’t have to worry about whether or not external users had up-to-date client software, since all they needed for access was a browser and password.

“The most compelling reason for a portal structure is the ability to publish information to an outside audience,” Berkland says. “With access to a portal, our clients can see and consume their information in a secure environment.”

While many Web and portal packages exist in the marketplace today, Berkland knew that the product Dickstein Shapiro was looking for had to be open and scalable to support future growth. In addition, the solution had to integrate seamlessly with its current business-specific third-party knowledge applications for discrete legal functions, for all its practice areas, especially corporate and litigation.

Given the existing investment in the earlier version of the Hummingbird document management infrastructure, Hummingbird was a logical vendor for Dickstein Shapiro to consider when the law firm went looking for a portal solution.

With the Hummingbird knowledge management solution, Dickstein Shapiro was able to pull all of its unstructured data into focus with search, categorization and retrieval capabilities. “Being able to search through multiple sources and pulling back one result was one of the things management liked most about the Hummingbird solution,” Berkland says.

The scalable engine in Hummingbird Enterprise gave Dickstein Shapiro confidence that the company wouldn’t outgrow its software. Additionally, the Web-based interface and advanced security features in the new Hummingbird document management technology provided the backbone for the law firm’s plans to allow clients to securely access their own data, without adding an administrative burden on Dickstein Shapiro’s technical staff.

The portal then provided the solid platform to seamlessly integrate the firm’s other applications and data, enabling Dickstein Shapiro to create a Web-based arena where its clients and attorneys could more efficiently share data and communicate.“The Webtop application for external access was the main feature we were looking for,” Berkland says. “With the Hummingbird Portal software we are able to make the system available to people on the outside, looking in.”

Results: Moving Forward, Faster

With more than 800 Dickstein Shapiro employees at multiple sites using the technology, the law firm is delivering better collaborative opportunities both internally and externally, according to Berkland.

“Knowledge transfer is very difficult in any environment,” he says. “Getting knowledge passed from a senior partner to a young attorney costs time, effort and money for us as a firm, as well as for our clients.”

Berkland says the Dickstein Shapiro attorneys are now able to quickly tap into the software’s power, finding new ways to structure searches and reports to better serve the clients’ needs.

“We try to give our people tools and technologies that are so easy they can use them without having to think about them,” Berkland says.

By opening up the information via the Hummingbird Portal, they can also navigate the typical legal snowstorm of faxes and e-mails that swirl around any negotiation, Berkland says.

“E-mail is great, but it isn’t the only way we communicate and collaborate on projects. We have clients all over the world who may need to review contracts or respond to litigation requests. The portal allows them to consume their knowledge and respond to requests on their schedule,” Berkland says. “Clients should be able to access their information when they want to and the portal and Web publishing tools from Hummingbird allow us to do that.”

Application Notes

Industry: LegalOrganization: Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky LLP

The Challenge:

• Wanted to streamline knowledge transfer process from experienced partners to new attorneys
• Needed Web access to a personalized, secure document management system, for both internal users and external clients
• Needed scalable, extensible, and open document collaboration platform to integrate custom line of business applications.

Hummingbird Solution:

• Document Management, Knowledge Management and Portal.

Key Benefits:

• Easier internal access to documents, from any client
• External client access to document-based knowledge assets via Hummingbird Portal and.Hummingbird DM
• Scalability to support future customization via open protocols
• Minimal training and high adoption rates with straightforward Web-based interface
• Full lifecycle requirements for information.