Lawyers design 'bespoke' Web training portal

City firm Rowe & Maw this week launched KnowMaw - a 'bespoke knowledge management portal.'

The portal - which has taken the firm's in-house team nine months to design and develop - is aimed at allowing users to a single access point for all internal and external information resources without the need for additional training.

The portal screen allows users to enter two main information areas: user sites, such as the firm's marketing database, library, CD-Roms, e-mail and knowledge databanks such as precedents and professional practice rules; and a search area, designed to enable easy search access to all stored information.

The search function also allows users to run 'alert' searches, which sends an e-mail and hyperlink when relevant information is found, and a 'speedsearch', which allows the results of relevant searches to be flagged up to enable easier future searches.

The portal has been designed on the back of the Hummingbird Fulcrum knowledge management system, which has been rewritten to fit the firm's requirements.

Courtney Park, head of IT at Rowe & Maw, said the system was 'not new but fundamentally different' to other knowledge management systems because it had been developed 'with a great deal of input from lawyers'.

Mr Park added: 'Other systems out there have been designed for other professions and then adapted for use by lawyers.

Our key design goal was to provide a system which our lawyers could use with little or no training and still derive maxim benefit from.'

Sue Allen