Clients with large panels of law firms are increasingly demanding a more cohesive extranet service from their panel, experts have said.

“In the past we've been very focused on building extranets for our clients and we're starting to see a trend now, particularly with larger clients who have a panel, they are saying that they don't want to have to carry a secure token for 10 different extranets. They are turning it back and wanting us to put the information on their site in a particular format,” said Berys Amor, Director of Technology at Corrs Chambers Westgarth.

Cristina Libro, Legal Technology Solutions Manager at Henry Davis York, says that she has also seen this pattern: “I can say I've definitely seen that trend, it's this trend towards integration and I think it's because our clients are a lot more sophisticated now with their use of technology,” she said. “You can understand how frustrating it would be to go to 10 different sites. We still have to balance this demand with leveraging technology to address our clients' needs, but I think we now have to shift our mindset to looking at how we can integrate with their systems. Our focus has always been on the user experience, but even more so now because our clients have a panel of firms.”

Luke McLean, NSW State Manager of Thomas Duryea Consulting, says that the solution might be improved cooperation between panel firms. “If you could meet [clients] halfway and have that middle ground where they do have a single interface for a number of firms, they’re less likely to need that same level of integration into their backend systems, which is going to make it a lot simpler for you to manage and control,” he commented.

This report is a short preview of the ALB Technology Roundtable, which will be published in full in issue 11.8, to be distributed in hardcopy and on this site shortly. A preview clip can be found streaming on the ALB homepage; keep an eye out for updates which will be promoted in the ALB newsletter.