MindServer Search will serve more than 6,000 employees in 20 countries
Clifford Chance selected Recommind’s MindServer Search following a competitive tender and proof of concept. The solution was then piloted in Amsterdam and during this period more than 75 percent of potential users accessed the solution, with 97 percent agreeing that it offered significant improvements over the firm’s previous search systems. As additional offices have come online, user adoption has been equally high confirming the need for a comprehensive search infrastructure.
The solution, named ‘CC Search’, is accessed from the organisation-wide intranet. When performing a search, results are first targeted to the lawyer’s location, but can easily be expanded to also include information from the rest of the firm that is appropriate to the individual’s role, specialisation, client and sector focus. Using ‘CC Search’, lawyers at Clifford Chance can quickly access information stored both on the global intranet and knowledge collection, client transaction bibles, publications and transactions databases. In addition, with Recommind’s unique Matters & Expertise module, staff are able to identify colleagues with expertise in or knowledge of a specific query within a matter of seconds, unhindered by geographical or practice boundaries or time zones – crucial given the firm’s global reach and the scope of its work.
“Recommind brings a strong focus on and understanding of the legal sector,” said Paul Greenwood, global CIO at Clifford Chance. “MindServer Search provides our lawyers with powerful new capabilities and this underpins a key part of our knowledge strategy – our lawyers can now access much of the knowledge they need from one single search box, rather than having to search in multiple different databases. By simplifying the process in this way and integrating all our knowledge systems, our lawyers can find the right information at the right time.”
Apart from the efficiency and expertise gains Clifford Chance lawyers are now experiencing with MindServer Search, the firm has also been very impressed with the level of customer focus and cooperation Recommind offered. Law firms using Recommind’s solutions are actively encouraged to share best practices and to provide regular feedback on product features which helps Recommind shape its future technology to support its large law firm user base.
“With so much data being created and stored, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for lawyers to accurately pinpoint the information they need, and firms need a solution that can help ease this pressure,” said Simon Price, European director at Recommind. “To work effectively, disparate knowledge systems and databases need to be tied together or some resources will simply go unused; the same goes for all the valuable information they might hold. With an overarching solution that is intuitive and easy to use, and that also automatically integrates all relevant data whatever its original source, law firms can be confident that even the smallest piece of information will always be quickly found when needed, leaving lawyers to spend more time on revenue-generating activities.”
About Clifford Chance
Clifford Chance is one of the world's leading law firms, helping clients achieve their goals by combining the highest global standards with local expertise. The Firm has unrivalled scale and depth of legal resources across the four key markets of the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, and focuses on the core areas of commercial activity: capital markets; corporate and M&A; finance and banking; real estate; tax; pensions and employment; litigation and dispute resolution. Clifford Chance has 29 offices in 20 countries with some 3,600 legal advisers. The Firm also operates a 'best friends' arrangement with AZB & Partners in India and with Lakatos, Köves & Partners in Hungary, and a co-operation agreement with Al-Jadaan & Partners Law Firm in Saudi Arabia.
Clifford Chance was ranked 'tier one' in more international tables than any other firm in the Chambers Global 2009 Directory. This independent analysis focuses on firms' legal ability, professional conduct, client service, and commercial awareness, and these rankings provide outstanding recognition for the Firm's breadth of expertise and consistency of quality across global markets.
About MindServer Search
Recommind’s MindServer Search substantially reduces the time and costs involved in conducting research, while improving the quality of work produced by the end user. Using Recommind’s patented CORE™ platform, MindServer Search dramatically improves access to a wide variety of information across large, distributed enterprises and returns results in context for more accurate understanding and ‘actionability’ of the information. MindServer Search utilises powerful concept-based search technology to connect relevant information in document management, records management, portal and e-mail systems and myriad other applications and databases with the users that need it.