P2P

48 P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | F A L L 2 0 2 2 to constantly replace software and hardware. And the final third is spent on what she calls "true innovation," the projects that can provide competitive advantage for the firm—"because if you don't create that time and space to innovate, you will never get to it." With this baseline, the firm began to operationalize this new focus by instituting an initiative it called Shearman Analytics. In practice, notes LaForce, the firm's global director of knowledge and research, this meant taking a three-to-five-year window to rip and replace old systems, architect new ones with a data lake at the center, then be able to filter that data in and out across the organization. Projects are proposed and implemented with regard to a combination of factors, including the need and the maturity of the technolog y, but always with a goal at the center of ever y decision of reducing costs, reducing risk and driving prof itable f irm revenue. Saper, the f irm's global director of enterprise architecture and deliver y ser vices, notes that these projects also take cues from clients, in order to be consistent with organizations that have strict reg ulator y standards. "One of the things we made sure is that what we did, ever ything we would do, has to be from a security, process, compliance, privacy, and governance perspective, equal to our g reater than what our f inancial clients would be doing," he explains. The first of what LaForce called the "behemoths" that the firm wanted to tackle was its document management system. This resulted in a two-year process of implementing the iManage Cloud, beginning in 2018 and finishing during the early months of the 2020 pandemic. Williams-Range says the technology team did over 2,000 engagement sessions during the selection and implementation process to get stakeholders across the organization on board—"I wish I was joking, but I'm not," she adds with a laugh. Once that was in place, the team largely turned its attention to architecture: a new global background based on SD-WAN, Office 365 across the organization, an Azure-based active directory single sign- on. Or as firm chief technology officer Baxter puts it, "all the stuff that is not to talk to humans about because it's boring. But it's very important that all of that's done." Now, the next project is another "behemoth": the company's financial system. LaForce says the firm had actively waited on transporting its back-office functions to the cloud to make sure the technology "was as fine-tuned as possible." Williams-Range adds, "We knew we didn't want to make a jump unless it was going to bring us some pretty massive benefits." Shearman & Sterling has previously used Thomson Reuters 3E for its firm management software, and in going to the cloud, decided to stick with the company for a cloud- based 3E implementation. In highlighting why the firm F E A T U R E S "We knew we didn't want to make a jump unless it was going to bring us some pretty massive benefits."

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