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For my first blog I want to start to give you a short overview of the IT solutions in use by Dutch law firms. Currently, there are approximately 14,951 lawyers and 3.258 law firms in the Netherlands. 48.5 % are "me, myself, and I firms"; 36.5% have 2-5 lawyers; 8.7% have 6-10 lawyers; 5.6% have 11-60 lawyers, and just 0.8% have more than 60 lawyers (24 firms).
If you want be part of the Dutch law firm Top 50 you need at least 30 fee earners. Most of the law firms on this list are Dutch, some are from the UK (Clifford Chance, Freshfields, A&O. etc) and a couple are US firms (Baker McKenzie, Greenberg etc).
All time number one in the list is Nauta Dutilh, followed by Houthoff, De Brauw and Loyens Loeff. In terms of used IT systems, it is clear that regarding Financial Practice Management systems, Aderant is the big leader with some law firms in the Top 10 and a lot more in the Top 50. There is only one firm in the top 10 and only 2 in the Top 50 that are using Thomson’s Elite.
Interwoven, but also Hummingbird/Open Text, are the leaders in the category Document Management and regarding CRM LexisNexis, Interaction, and Epona’s ContactManager are the major players.
Why are the firms using these vendors? It’s easy to answer this. Everybody is looking to each other. That’s common practice and it’s also the case in the Netherlands. There is even a regular meeting between the IT managers of the (Top 20) firms to discuss the usage of the IT systems and especially the reasoning behind the selection processes.
As many of you will know, The Netherlands is a small country, but in the European Legal world they play a big role. There are also some “Best friends” or alliances between Dutch firms and US/UK firms. For example: Stibbe is a best friend of Gleiss Lutz in Germany and Herbert Smith in the UK. CMS Derks belongs to the CMS organization like CMS Cameron McKenna and such firms choose their IT systems more “in line of” than just picking one. As you can see there is nothing that strange or different from the firms in the UK / US and the rest of the world. In the end it's a small world.
For my coming posts I will write about the general Legal IT solutions and not only the one used in the Netherlands.
Marcel Lang
September 2008
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