February 20, 2007
Law Firm Extranets to Will Continue to Win Business
Providing case-related information to law firm clients has become a weapon to win and secure corporate business.
One of the speakers at the 2007 LegalTech conference told his audience that most of the extranets and other similar technology investments by law firms would wind up on the junk pile. Why? Because a corporate law firm can’t continue to go to more and more extranets, each using a different user interface and a different proprietary arrangement of case information.
Corporate clients will eventually have to go to a single digital information center and each law firm's information will have to flow into that system, much like electron billing is currently handled. What the speaker envisions would require “standards” like those being developed by LEDES and the development of value-added networks that will receive information fees from multiple law firms and then convert the received information from the standard formats to that required by the corporation.
I suspect it will happen, but the timeline will be longer than the speaker envisions and the road there will be a winding one. In the meantime, extranets for communicating with a law firm’s clients can provide a competitive edge worth going for. However, before you set out to build your silver bullet for winning a particular client’s business, my advice is to go visit them. Spend time learning about the reports, charts, graphics, and key performance indicators they use to manage their relationship with outside council and to stay on top of the matters being handled by the law department.
Plato recognized that “Necessity Mothers Invention” as early as 360 B.C. Your law firm’s clients are inventive. They will find a way to piece together solutions that enable them to get the job done. You are likely to find great ideas that would have been missed in designing things from the view of the law firm. Here is a secret worth remembering: Rather than offering something that has to complete the solutions your client has already invented, why not make yourself a shoe-in for winning their business—making their idea and approach even better.
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