Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/37773
ONE SHAREPOINT, MANY USES The mandate for change has been and continues to be clear: Firms have needed to find ways to innovate in order to deliver legal services differently to clients. Innovation can be found in many forms, and applying new technologies does not always ensure improvement to firm process or a client relationship, but it’s clear that many firms have turned to SharePoint as a platform for change and improvement. Over the past several years, law firms have made diverse use of SharePoint, typically as a multipurpose intranet environment first, and then expanding into other areas such as enterprise search or extranet collaboration and information sharing. As is typical with any technology, there have been award-winning projects where SharePoint measurably added value, and there have been less-than-stellar projects where SharePoint didn’t shine as brightly as hoped the first or even second time it was deployed. A common thread across the most successful projects is clear: SharePoint, like any firmwide technology, must be applied with a clear focus and in alignment with business objectives in ways that create the most immediate value. CLIENTS HAVE THE SPOTLIGHT With today’s increasingly competitive markets and greater price pressure, one of the highest priorities for a law firm is to increase its focus on existing clients. While demand for legal services appears to be returning, it’s returning with the client in the driver’s seat. Firms must find ways to better know and understand their clients in order to build stronger client relationships and to provide more proactive services — and ideally more services overall. The convergence of these external and internal drivers has created new opportunities for firms to leverage the platform to address their critical client-centric efforts. While many firms have been delivering “client sites” within their intranets or secure extranet sites for sharing information directly with clients, these same firms are now looking at ways to create more value from these investments and to overcome limitations and challenges that they’ve encountered in the past in using SharePoint. For most law firms, using SharePoint to pull together information about existing clients from different sources is standard fare. The problem of effectively integrating SharePoint with time and billing systems, CRM systems and other sources of useful client data is, for the most part, solved. If you aren’t delivering these basics today, you have a great opportunity to increase the value of your intranet by adding these capabilities. COLLABORATE TO INNOVATE: SHAREPOINT AT PARKER POE Some firms, however, have now gone beyond the basics to create even more value for their firms and their clients. By aligning their efforts with key business objectives and, more importantly, by having clear top-down support and by collaborating across functional areas beyond IT, these firms have benefited the bottom line. Two firms that have led the way in the use of SharePoint are Parker Poe and Reed Smith LLP. The success of Parker Poe’s SharePoint intranet, Parkway, offers insights about the benefits of collaboration. The project was born www.iltanet.org Portal Platforms 25