To win new client pitches and be invited to the next stage in request for proposal (RFP) bids, legal teams thrive on finding, analyzing, and organizing specific, strategic knowledge from their experts, case experience and business IP.
However, lawyers, paralegals, knowledge managers and others within the firm often scramble to find the most relevant information from the collective wisdom of the firm when developing a bid, pricing, or deal strategy—working in silos, knowledgeable only about their areas of expertise within the firm. Sending emails out to all lawyers (“Does anyone have this skill?” “Has anyone worked with this client?” “Does anyone know this person?”) or using a search tool that is limited to finding information only in the business system with which it is integrated (e.g., matter management, financial and billing systems), lawyers may miss the most current and relevant enterprise-wide information available—along with the opportunity to gain new business.
Yet response speed, accuracy, and comprehensiveness are key to delivering faster, more strategic information to meet urgent client or prospect requests — while reducing unbillable write-downs. Without expedience, legal teams look bad to clients and prospects and competitors win.
Innovative law firms use proven enterprise-wide search and insights technology to win
“You can pull individual search results from individual silos to build a pricing strategy… BUT the search results are better when you pull data from across all at the same time.”
Lisa Gianakos, ALPM, Director, Practice Technology Solutions, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman, LLP
Next gen enterprise search and insights solutions based on a metadata and AI approach to knowledge management can dramatically transform the way law firms, professional services organizations and those delivering work product can get relevant information on-demand. Not only is this approach to enterprise search critical to gaining business, but it can also automatically streamline processes and save costs by creating expert directories, identifying PII content, classifying user-created content stored in legacy data, and more.
The best enterprise search and insights technology connects to a myriad of data systems to get an immediate snapshot into all of an organization’s data stores at once. With this federated view into and across data systems, from legal document management products to the finance, billing, and matter management systems, leading organizations succeed by pulling the most accurate and current information from all available sources.
Metadata is the foundation
Why is metadata critical to enterprise search and insights technology? It is the foundation on which data search applications can be automated, and relevant matter information can be identified in moments from across millions of records. AI-powered search literally (and securely) crawls and indexes information stored inside expert attorney directories, HR and litigation dockets, SharePoint, email and attachments and other data locations.
Knowing the exact keywords to use in your search isn’t necessary
Additionally, any user can quickly and automatically build search models that they can reuse and share with team members to find and stay on top of the most relevant information available, including related matters, authors, and content across the firm—all without knowing precise keywords. This capability is often critical to showcasing a firm’s experience in a particular type of matter, along with its leading legal experts.
Visualizations paint the big picture case strategy that clients need to see
Legal teams can quickly see relevant information in a federated result listing with visual renderings that illustrate the importance and data relationships between authors and their content, providing at-a-glance insights that would otherwise be hidden in data stores.
For example, when pitching to a client, practice areas can put together the right team of experts quickly and visually. By searching on a company for which work has been done in the past, knowledge managers overseeing pricing strategies can see the full list of relevant lawyers and their cases within the firm and the authored documents they have created. With knowledge graph capabilities, users can tie documents back to the experts (authors) along with relevant locations and practice areas.
With OpenText Decisiv, instantly find, organize and gain insights from your data for the competitive advantage
OpenText™ Decisiv™ is a proven knowledge enterprise management tool used by major law firms, professional services organizations, and corporations worldwide. In addition to putting business development on the fast-track, they also use Decisiv to automatically profile documents stored in file shares, intranets, and portals, to securely find PII and other compliance related content to reduce risk, and to identify potential conflicts when new matters are opened.
With Decisiv, legal teams can save valuable time while gaining more complete case, project, and client knowledge, improving overall business results.
For organizations determined to improve their knowledge management processes for competitive advantage, learn more:
- Visit the Decisiv web page.
- Watch this on-demand webinar to hear best practices from Decisiv clients.
- See how Clifford Chance consolidated internal search systems for one unified search in this customer success story.
