The roadmap to successful information governance
Editor
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Editor
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Portal Technologies: Fact and Fiction, Part 2
One of the great things about SharePoint (note that in this column, when I say SharePoint, I am somewhat generically referring to WSS and MOSS) is its ease of use, ease of implementation, ease of administration, etc. In many ways, a parallel can be drawn between SharePoint and the early days of Visual Basic. Visual Basic made it easy for anyone to create a Windows application. An unfortunate side effect was that a lot of people did in fact create Windows applications which were ill-planned, ill-conceived, and badly implemented. Did this mean the VB itself was bad? No, it just needed to be used intelligently (I know, many will argue that it was and is a bad language, but that is a different discussion).
SharePoint is much the same. It is easy to set up ad hoc sites, throw together team sites, do some collaboration, store some documents, etc. However, it is also easy to get into a lot of trouble when these ad hoc sites grow and multiply. As with many things, it is easy to do the easy stuff, but much more difficult to do the hard stuff well. It is even more difficult to implement SharePoint in such a way that it brings real, lasting value.
Add to this the breadth of functionality in SharePoint, and it becomes obvious that in order to get the most out of an investment in SharePoint requires a significant amount of research and understanding of SharePoint’s capabilities, and what they mean for your needs.
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Well, I am finally getting my first column written. It has taken longer than expected – the joys of cold and flu season here in Canada.
First, a bit of background on why I am here – writing on a Legal Technology site. Working as a Principal Consultant with T4G Limited and having spent much of the last decade as VP of Technology with Whitehill Technologies, I have helped hundreds of clients overcome challenges related to document generation, document automation, and workflow. Along with leading the teams that developed and maintained Whitehill Enterprise and Paperless Proforma, I was also the driving force behind the creation of Whitehill’s workflow solutions for legal.
My primary focus currently is on portal technologies and the deployment of portal solutions in the enterprise. Of course, one of the big challenges I find is that the whole idea of “portal technologies” is very broad, and often ill-defined. What I mean is that a lot of organizations decide (or are told) that they need a portal solution, without having a clear idea of what that means, or exactly what business problems they intend to solve.
Last year was a very good year for me and my team. At the beginning of 2008 the team was still very much reactive in terms of the services (or lack of) we offered. By the end of the year we had launched our curriculum – now offering a dozen new courses. Our evaluation results have exceeded our wildest expectations and the feedback from the business (right up to Partner level) has been fantastic. I can pretty confidently say that we upped our game in 2008 and we now deliver more value than ever. So why do I still feel a little uneasy? The economic downturn in the second half of 2008 signalled the end of more than a decade of law firm growth – and of course law firm IT department growth. Many firms have made redundancies. No matter how secure you think you are, no one is bullet proof in the current climate. Can you honestly say that you haven't looked around the department and considered who would go before you? It's a horrible thought, but human nature when you have bills to pay (at this point I'm pondering the possibility that it's just me who's had this thought and I'm going to burn in hell). Everyone is now thinking about strategies for increasing visibility and delivering more value.
IT can improve efficiency, foster innovation and support your firm’s green credentials.
December’s news focused on the credit crunch and an obsession with shoppers’ footprints in London’s West End as early sales finally tempted Christmas shoppers. While some features pages focused on thrift, others asked whether we could really spend our way out of a recession. This doesn’t seem a sensible approach. I doubt that many individuals or families will be throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to save the UK economy and the Prime Minister’s reputation. And it definitely won’t be the case when it comes to law firms’ expenditure. Since my last column – and I know that it has been a while – I have spoken with a number of law firms in the UK and Europe, and certainly all the sensible ones acknowledge that the economic situation is transforming the nature of their work, which has focused on reorganisation, restructuring and insolvency as well as distressed transactions. Law firms are necessarily involved in the rescue deals that are hitting the headlines, so they are only too well aware of the impact on business.
Although some of the biggest firms report excellent half-yearly figures, the big picture in the legal sector is blurred by the fact that many are undertaking work that is driven by the financial crisis and the economic downturn – insolvency and litigation departments are particularly busy. Notwithstanding this, the slowdown in transactional and real estate work has led to many firms announcing redundancies. The imminent danger is the possibility of a gap between the end of the ‘clean up’ and the market picking up again. Firms that do not consider their medium to long-term strategy risk falling into that gap. Law firms, like other businesses, are looking harder than ever at their own spending.
Where does that leave the IT department? Technology is critical to all modern businesses so ‘value add’ needs to focus on providing reliable and responsive systems and support as any downtime is expensive, wasteful and frustrating. Speed and user-friendliness are top priorities in order to make the best use of lawyers’ expensive time. In a cost-conscious business environment, it is more important than ever for IT directors to work closely with the business and demonstrate the return on investing in systems and applications that fit and support the business in terms of hard savings achieved through efficiency improvements and reduced manpower. As you are no doubt aware, there have been a number of high-profile redundancy announcements in law firm support departments too. Although it makes sense to outsource some services, this critical strategic element represents the core value of IT directors and their in-house teams.
CRM is a hot topic in many firms at the moment, particularly in the current economic climate. This is not a new phenomenon. CRM has been around for a while now, but the question many people are asking is why it so often fails to take off. Ok, I accept that comment could be perceived as being a little harsh. Howard Hughes famously created the world biggest aircraft called the Spruce Goose. It cost a fortune, many thought it would never work, it sped along for an age before taking off only a few feet before gliding gently back to earth. CRM systems can be a bit like this. It's a massive undertaking and a real change for many people. The momentum takes a long time to build and take-off is extremely hard to achieve. See, no cynicism here!
Maybe I am a little cynical. I've been involved with three CRM system launches in three different firms. I have also shared experiences with friends/ex-colleagues (who work for other firms) that paint a similar picture. CRM seems to be hard work, even though it should be a no-brainer. But why? Let's discuss a few issues.
An attention grabbing headline if ever there was one! I don't want to come across all 'woe is me', but rather explore perceptions and the role of IT Training within a law firm, particularly during software rollouts.
Well are we?
Ok, the inspiration for the headline originates from a conversation I had with colleagues many years ago. It was a conversation borne of frustration at current events in the firm where we worked. We were rolling out a new DMS to the firm. Obviously this is a major event for IT. It just had to be right. It's a week before the training begins and the IT Training team still haven't seen a finished product and we have no training environment. Scary stuff, but not uncommon. You just have to adapt.
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).
I’ve heard this question a lot of times lately and for some reason I always wondered: “will it ever be?” If you are looking further down the road you’ll hear a lot different opinions about SharePoint and if it will be necessary or useful in a law firm.
Many firms are busy to renew their intranet to professionalize the look & feel and to implement new features. Often, such intranet redesign projects face quite some scope-creep resulting eventually in the launch of new and related projects. This is always the biggest challenge of a project manager: scoping the project to a manageable piece.
Why am I here?
I have a genuine interest in legal IT but I find most publications rarely mention IT Training (or front line services generally), unless it relates to IT staff development. Surely there’s more to legal IT than just technology? I took it upon myself to jump on my IT Training soapbox. As a wise lady once said, “I believe the Trainee Solicitors are the future, teach them well and let them lead the way”. I’m sure those were the words...
For those who are interested (and a few who are not) I aim to explore the role of an effective IT Training function within a law firm – hopefully dispelling a few myths, exploring a few case studies and providing some food for thought. I don’t have all the answers and I certainly don’t claim to be the fountain of all training knowledge, but I am passionate about what I do.
I am delighted to contribute to the new Legal IT Professionals website. Let me start by introducing myself and flagging up some of my current and ongoing projects and a very important upcoming event in the legal IT calendar.
Legal Technology Journal
I am the editor of Legal Technology Journal, a quarterly magazine from Legalease, publishers of Legal Business, The In-House Lawyer and the Legal 500 series. Legal Technology Journal is essential reading for everyone working in legal IT, with a readership of some 5,000.
Legal Technology Journal is going from strength to strength – the summer issue was a bumper issue with more case studies, articles and pages than ever before at a time when many publications are clearly struggling for content.
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