denotes premium content | Dec 4 2008 Feature
posted 24 Sep 2007 in Volume 2 Issue 1
Case study: Davies Arnold Cooper
The hunt for better search tools
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Like all legal firms, Davies Arnold Cooper’s practice revolves around information – and finding just the right piece of information when lawyers need it, wherever it resides. In the not-so-distant past, information resided in folders piled high on lawyers’ desks or scattered about their office.
In recent times, with the advent of computers and networks, much of that information has been transformed into digital bits and bytes. However, the process of finding the right bits of information in the digital world has not necessarily become any easier than in the old world of paper.
We have wrestled with this issue at Davies Arnold Cooper for some time. Prior to 2004, the firm had created a de facto document-management system (DMS), saving files on Novell shared drives. Lawyers, fee earners, secretaries and support staff would access these files on an ‘as needed’ basis, but the solution did not encourage collaboration and sharing of knowledge. Without a ‘search’ capability, users had to browse folder structures to find documents. Folders were set up by groups and individuals – not managed by a central file store; ie. a DMS.
Furthermore, searching gigabits of digital files, documents, and emails could be tedious and time consuming. In addition, due to privacy and sensitivity concerns, some files stored on the drives were ‘ring fenced’ from general access, creating an administrative nightmare. With no application to provide security, users had to rely on Windows Folder access rights. So, like most law firms, we realised we needed a more effective way to store and search for information.
The quest for better search
The firm deployed a DMS in 2004, based on the Interwoven WorkSite product. This provided us with a much more controlled and secure document store, but did not solve the problem of finding relevant information in a timely manner. Users became increasingly frustrated that the documents they were saving into the new DMS were becoming harder to retrieve, due to the expanding number of documents being searched and the inadequacy of the search tools available. The DMS could not provide a rich, intuitive ‘Google’ style search user interface with smart filters that would allow the user to filter down results sets based on the Information (metadata) held against the documents. For example, we couldn’t search for ‘retail lease agreement’ and then filter the results down by Matter Partner = John Smith, Date=Last Month, etc.
In addition, the firm had been creating multiple document stores for know-how and other matter-related documents, and also had multiple other sources of information including the firm’s intranet, library system, and external publishers’ websites, such as LexisNexis. This resulted in the need for multiple searches in multiple locations using different user interfaces—with the end user (lawyer) having to remember which location to search for certain types of information. After searching two or three of five possible repositories and not finding what they were looking for, a user might simply give up looking and revert to a professional support lawyer (PSL), resulting in a duplicate of effort and potential time delay in responding to the client. While the PSLs are there to assist the legal teams at weekends and late in the evening, their support is not always to hand and our biggest fear is that lawyers might start to search the internet for answers and, in a worse case scenario, to find a template.
Eighteen months after deploying the WorkSite DMS product, the firm’s knowledge management (KM), information technology, and library departments were all receiving requests for a ‘Google’ style search system that could access all these repositories in a quick and efficient manner. Users, and in particularly lawyers, wanted to type in any search phrase or query and immediately get the information they were looking for or, at worse, a close match, without the need to constantly re-word their query or change applications. A basic search in DMS sometimes required the use of asterix (*) to locate wildcard or particular information, and unless the requester positioned the asterix in the correct place, this could create significant frustration from the end user’s perspective. There were instances where numerous amounts of documents were returned, however, the only way to sort through them was to manually scroll down to find the relevant document.
In addition to a Google-like search capability, the ideal solution would also include the ability to search not only for work-in-progress (matter-related) documents contained within the WorkSite system, but also query the firm’s internal and external know how.
The review process
In October 2006 we received Executive Group approval to commence a project to find a ‘Google’ style enterprise search solution for the firm. We researched the marketplace and identified a number of potential solutions. We initially evaluated Concept Searching from UC Logic, Tikit with the Interse iBox product, and Solcara with SolSearch. Toward the end of a proof of concept (PoC) trial with two of these products we came across Recommind. After a short but successful PoC with the Recommind Mindserver Legal search tool (which had only recently formally entered the
The Recommind Mindserver Legal search tool eliminated the need to search using particular characters and searching methods. Users could simply type in word/s or phrases, making the user experience less painful and a great deal faster than our current procedures.
A typical search generally consists of something similar to the screenshots included. These show the results carried out on both our DMS and Recommind.
During the PoC, Recommind’s MindServer Legal search tool impressed Davies Arnold Cooper’s lawyers with the relevancy of the search results, which were delivered at a speed considerably faster than the other products that we evaluated. In addition, MindServer Legal was able to provide not only out-of-the-box integration with Davies Arnold Cooper’s internal repositories (including Interwoven Worksite and Tikit KnowHow System), but also proved capable of searching key external information sites, such as LexisNexis, PLC, iLaw, and various government and public information websites.
The firm’s PSLs have found this capability particularly helpful. Involved with numerous cases day in and day out, they are tasked to draw up contracts and leases, and gather information from previous and current cases. MindServer Legal provides PSLs, as well as the lawyers, with a one-stop capability to find what they need, wherever it resides, making their jobs much easier and more productive.
Search solution rollout
We are currently rolling out the Recommind KM search solution to 350 users across the organisation, which includes all of our UK offices, Madrid, and Mexico. Future plans include adding the Recommind Matters & Expertise capabilities to allow lawyers to locate relevant people and matters in addition to relevant documents.
Although MindServer Legal was not originally intended to be used by Davies Arnold Cooper’s litigation practice for litigation review, while we were trialing the product the firm was working on a particularly large litigation case. The client presented Davies Arnold Cooper with over 30 gigabytes of case-related data stored on multiple hard drives. The lawyers who were assigned to the case wondered how they would be able to determine what information was stored on these drives, or how to find the specific information they needed as the case proceeded. The lawyers approached Recommind for assistance in indexing the data as they required urgent access to the information for early case assessment. In a matter of three days Recommind was able to present the case team with a search and review environment to interrogate that data, thus saving the firm a great deal of time and money.
Stuart Cowell is head of IT at Davies Arnold Cooper. He can be contacted at scowell@dac.co.uk
