Involve staff more in IT, says City firm

Law firms which implement IT systems without consulting their solicitors risk missing out vital elements and excluding their staff from the latest developments, a leading City firm has cautioned.The warning came after Richards Butler spent a year piloting its 'ouRBase' knowledge management system with IT consultant Granite & Comfrey (see [2001] Gazette, 23 August, 15).Initially working with professional support lawyers, it widened its consultation after six months.

'We realised that our involvement alone was not enough,' explained Alice Woodhouse, a professional support lawyer in the firm's property department.'It was time to give fee-earners a say, and although the reaction was positive, they told us some features were missing and others needed to be changed,' she added.After working with staff at all levels, the firm now has in place a tailor-made knowledge management system suited to solicitors' specialist needs.ouRBase combines internally produced documents with information from external sources, Justis.com and Lawtel.

Lawyers can now access a range of materials through the firm's Intranet, with documents constantly updated to reflect legal developments.The joint working means that the system features tools including a customised thesaurus and indexing.Ms Woodhouse said the exercise provided a valuable lesson.

'Psychologically, people feel that they have been brought in more,' she said.

'After all, it is their system, and if they don't like it, it is no good at all.'Loyita Worely, Richards Butler's head of library and information services, said the firm was pleased with the results.

'ouRBase has been tailored to our own requirements and is organic to the firm, rather than something that has been imposed from the outside,' she said.Meanwhile, leading west country firm Bevan Ashford has also committed itself to utilising Web technology for information-sharing.

Its new Obtree C3 content management system will link solicitors working in its seven UK offices, with professional support lawyers acting as the 'hub' of the departments by taking responsibility for the content of the firms' Web site and Intranet.Bevan Ashford will also use the new system to redesign and rebrand its Web site, which it hopes will impact on the firm's on-line recruitment potential through an enhanced profile.Andy Duxbury, the firm's marketing director, said: 'Its ease of use, ability to manage the look and feel of the content in line with the brand, and its unmatchable scalability and functionality are all outstanding'.Paula Rohan