CASE STUDY
Bryan Cave Boosts Lawyer and Staff Productivity
Avanade® access to pre-release Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007
delivers perfect-fit solution
Bryan Cave LLP has a diversified international legal practice. The
firm represents a wide variety of business, financial, institutional and
individual clients, including publicly held multinational corporations,
large and mid-sized privately held companies, partnerships and
emerging companies. Aided by extensive investments in technology,
Bryan Cave’s more than 800 lawyers in 14 offices across the United
States, Europe, the Middle East, Italy and Asia efficiently serve
clients’ needs in the world’s leading business and financial markets.
Eager to replace an intranet with limited functionality, Bryan Cave
considered Microsoft SharePoint 2003 to support firm-wide
collaboration. Avanade’s review of the firm’s goals quickly revealed a
better solution in the wings: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
(MOSS) 2007, still in early beta testing. Through its close relationship
with Microsoft, Avanade was able to bring MOSS to Bryan Cave in
early 2006. The firm initially anticipated a five-year timeframe to
project completion in order to accommodate decision-making
partners’ focus on client work. By enrolling Bryan Cave in Microsoft’s
Rapid Deployment program and with a scalable proof-of-concept
development strategy, Avanade completed the project in two years,
giving Bryan Cave a scalable solution that enhances lawyer and staff
productivity and strengthens its ability to compete with firms three
times its size.
OVERVIEW
Industry
Legal Services
Geography
Global
Solution Summary
Custom-developed intranet
Technology
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
2007
Microsoft .NET Framework
Microsoft SQL Server®
Microsoft Active Directory®
Benefits
Rich environment for collaboration
Productivity boost
Robust document access
Situation
An outdated, patchwork intranet website limited the ability of lawyers and
staff to access relevant client information
Bryan Cave is rare among law firms—one of the few on the forefront of technology
aggressively investing in IT to enhance productivity. Named to CIO magazine’s
2007 CIO 100, a list of organizations that exemplify the highest level of operational
and strategic excellence in information technology, the firm is clearly committed to
technology. As Matt Bremer, client technology team leader for Byran Cave,
explains, “We use technology to gain a strategic advantage. For example, in
mergers and acquisitions, we’re a top 10 firm. Yet we’re one-third the size of the
other law firms in that group. Technology gives us the productivity to compete
effectively against much bigger firms.” The firm’s IT group also collaborates with
vendors on the development of software products and sells several of its own inhouse–developed software to other law firms.
“We use technology to gain a
strategic advantage. For example, in
mergers and acquisitions, we’re a
top 10 firm. Yet we’re one-third the
size of the other law firms in that
group. Technology gives us the
productivity to compete effectively
against much bigger firms.”
Matt Bremer
Client Technology Team Leader
Bryan Cave
Toward the end of 2005, Bryan Cave recognized an opportunity to further enhance
productivity among lawyers and staff. The firm’s intranet and content management
system, used by lawyers and staff to access and share information on client
matters, had evolved into a patchwork website, difficult to maintain and with more
pieces than any one person could master. The firm generates thousands of client
matters each year, and the total number of client matters, some dating back to the
1970, adds up to more than 50,000. Making all the many documents that relate to
all these client matters readily accessible to thousands of employees would have a
significant impact on productivity.
In January 2006, Bryan Cave called in Avanade as a potential vendor to help
design a new solution. The firm was ready for a supported program from an
established company with a proven track record and with regular patches and
updates. With strong in-house .NET skills, the firm wanted to explore Microsoft
SharePoint Portal Server 2003 as the basis for its new intranet and content
management system—one that would place client information at everyone’s
fingertips, promoting collaboration and simplifying searches.
Solution
Avanade brings new solution to the table for minimal customization and
maximal functionality and flexibility
Exploring Bryan Cave’s goals for the new system revealed that many of the
features the firm sought—robust document access capabilities and easy integration
with existing databases and web services—would need to be added to SharePoint
2003. Through its close relationship with Microsoft and insight into the company’s
products in development, Avanade recognized that the next generation product
would serve the firm more effectively. SharePoint 2007, though still in beta testing,
already had the functionality Bryan Cave sought built in, such as:
The web content management features of Microsoft Content Management
Server 2002
A .NET 2.0 framework foundation
© 2008 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Avanade name and logo are registered trademarks in the US and other countries.
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Simplified integration with databases and web services
Ready integration with Active Directory to allow reuse of permissions and
accounts and eliminating the need for new passwords for users
Security trimming to give users visibility into only those areas where they
were granted access
The ability for any site or list to provide an RSS feed to deliver content to
users through subscriptions
Avanade introduced Bryan Cave to the document storage and group collaboration
capabilities of SharePoint 2007. With the firm eager to move forward with this
advanced technology, Avanade enrolled Bryan Cave in Microsoft’s Early Adopters
program. This gave the firm access to the software while it was still in beta-1 testing
pending release the following year. Avanade also enrolled the firm in Microsoft’s
Rapid Deployment program, which gave the team a direct connection to Microsoft
throughout the build and deploy processes, accelerating development, mitigating
risks, and ensuring success.
In February 2006, Avanade began work on a scalable proof of concept that
targeted lawyers as users. This would allow decision-making partners to experience
the solution and its ability to enhance the effectiveness of lawyers throughout the
firm. With the success of the proof of concept delivered in early April, the team then
moved forward with full development.
The new intranet has a distinct website for each client matter. Avanade created
custom tools that allow the firm’s client and matter management system to feed into
the new SharePoint solution. Because SharePoint stores sites in a SQL Server
database, the more than 50,000 sites of client matters would have created a
resource management issue. Avanade created site collections to organize the
many matter sites within SharePoint and wrote an HTTP module to allow for simple,
concise URLs to make it easy to access specific sites.
Each lawyer and staff person at Bryan Cave now has a personal page, “My Site,”
where they in essence go to work each day. The page has both a public view and a
private view. The public view includes a bio and a case history, making it easy to
“meet” other lawyers in the organization. The private view includes rich site
summary (RSS) feeds that automatically deliver content associated with that
individual’s clients and cases, eliminating search time and ensuring that lawyers are
up to date on all client-related activities.
For lawyers and staff, the day starts with My Site, which is the default home page in
Internet Explorer. Outlook email is on the page, along with RSS feeds, blogs, and
links to practices and matters relevant to the individual. Avanade also mined
information from the firm’s Cisco database, pulling in call logs from its Cisco IP
phones and helping to trigger reminders for billing clients.
Bryan Cave began a gradual roll out of the system, targeting partners first, in June
of 2007.
© 2008 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Avanade name and logo are registered trademarks in the US and other countries.
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Avanade Value
Bryan Cave benefits from Avanade’s technology expertise and close
relationship with Microsoft
“From the beginning, we were
Avanade’s unique relationship with Microsoft gave Bryan Cave access to a solution
few other organizations were even aware of. Enrollment in the Microsoft Early
Adopters and Rapid Deployment programs in Microsoft technology gave Bryan
Cave a true leading edge technology with minimal risk. Avanade’s expertise in the
infrastructure and architecture of a SharePoint portal, along with its understanding
of the business processes that drive a law firm, gave Bryan Cave an intranet and
content management system that was a perfect fit for its needs.
focused on sharing our knowledge
Avanade developed the proof of concept with a team of five Avanade developers
led by an Avanade program manager and a Bryan Cave program manager working
together. With a commitment to knowledge transfer, Avanade was able to turn the
development of the full-scale solution over to a Bryan Cave team of five developers
working with guidance from both program managers. Chris Roth, Avanade’s
program manager, explains, “From the beginning, we were focused on sharing our
knowledge with Bryan Cave to ensure their mastery of the solution. As such, their
talented group of developers became highly proficient with SharePoint 2007 in just
a few months.”
months.”
with Bryan Cave to ensure their
mastery of the solution. As such,
their talented group of developers
became highly proficient with
SharePoint 2007 in just a few
Chris Roth
Program Manager
Avanade
Results
Bryan Cave lives up to “one firm” philosophy
Bryan Cave operates with a "one firm" philosophy, bringing to clients the worldwide
expertise and resources of its lawyers and professional staff. With a new intranet
and content management system built on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007,
the firm has created a rich environment for collaboration that allows lawyers to
quickly connect with the expertise they need to bring to bear on a client matter.
Fingertip access to client documents and daily servings of relevant updates keep
lawyers and staff focused on using information, not struggling to find it.
Whether at the office, at a client’s, or at home, the solution is now where members
of the firm “go to work.” And, it’s just the kind of place where technology-savvy
attorneys fresh out of law school want to go to work, helping Bryan Cave as it
competes for the best and brightest.
Bryan Cave is now preparing to extend the system, adding an extranet component
that will give clients online access to their case information—and further boost the
productivity of the firm overall.
About Avanade
Avanade is a global IT consultancy dedicated to using the Microsoft platform to help
enterprises achieve profitable growth. Through proven solutions that extend
Microsoft technologies, Avanade helps enterprises increase revenue, reduce costs
and reinvest in innovation to gain competitive advantage. Avanade consultants
deliver value according to each customer’s requirements, timeline and budget by
combining insight, innovation and the talent of our global workforce. For more
information about our services, please visit www.avanade.com.
© 2008 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Avanade name and logo are registered trademarks in the US and other countries.
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