Addleshaw Goddard, a Top 15 UK law firm, said it was looking for a search platform that would integrate with its Interwoven Worksite document management systems (DMS) to enable staff to access information that represents the closest match to their search criteria. The platform will search internal and external information sources.
Following proof of concept testing, Addleshaw Goddard settled on the MindServer platform because users were very confident with the results produced by the search.
Mark Gould, head of knowledge management at the law firm, said: As we worked with Recommind during the proof of concept, we found their team to be well-attuned to our needs, and the technology produced clearly relevant results in a way that impressed our users. I am looking forward to showing the rest of the firm what we can do with search and to improving the productivity of our staff by minimising the time spent searching for information.
The platform will search a number of sources specified by the administrator of the system. The firm’s DMS, precedent library, matter files stored on CDs, its intranet and external website as well as subscription resources such as Practical Law Company’s stock of legal information and resources could all be included in a search.
The results can be organised and filtered by author, practice area, document type, data range or source as well as other criteria.
Dan Simms, head of IT technical solutions at Addleshaw Goddard, said: Due to the nature of our work, we have to be sure that any technology we incorporate is not only beneficial to our working processes, but also produces consistent and accurate results. Identifying and collating the right information is a vital aspect of our lawyers’ day-to-day work: the success of a transaction or case can hinge on the quality of data that is readily available to our lawyers.
Craig Carpenter, vice president, marketing and business development at Recommind, told CBR that the deal is the latest step of its expansion in the UK market. Our primary market is North America, and the UK is our second. A year ago, our client base in the UK was zero and we’ve secured six clients over the last few months, so the growth has been rapid. We now have a team of five or six in the UK; a year ago we had just one, he said.
Carpenter says that expansion in the UK was a logical step for Recommind, as he sees the UK as an advanced market for search enterprise. He said: The UK market is ahead of the curve on knowledge management, mostly in the legal arena. We don’t quantify our target for clients over the next 12 months, but we would like to count at least a third of the top 30 UK law firms as clients by the end of this year.
The expansion of the client base has resulted in the company employing more people in the UK. We now have a team of 5 or 6 in the UK, whereas nine months ago, we had just one worker, said Carpenter.
Two Germans working at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) founded the company, and the workforce now stands at about 120, with 70 of those in Germany. About 60% of the workforce is in Europe, and the rest is in the US, most at the headquarters in San Francisco, Carpenter said.
Continued expansion of Recommind’s UK customer base will be key to maintaining the growth of the last few months, Carpenter says. Basically, it’s getting a foothold and having more products to offer customers and getting our name out there. We have a very strong reputation in the States, and we do now in the UK, but it took a little while, he said.
