denotes premium content | May 16 2008 
Feature
posted 1 Apr 2003 in Volume 5 Issue 10
60-second interview:
Blake Lapthorn takes it step-by-step with its corporate portal
Blake Lapthorn has just announced its merger with Oxford firm, Linnells. In bringing the two firms together, Vivien Eaden, IT director at Blake Lapthorn, is playing an important role in rolling-out a portal solution that will aid the collaboration of the two teams. In this interview, she explains the choices the firm faced when deciding on a portal solution and how they will be developing functionality over the coming months.
Can you tell me more about your portal and its implementation
We’ve only just purchased the portal and will be implementing it over the coming months with a number of projects. The first initiative is to launch the website for the merged firm, Blake Lapthorn Linnell. Initially, that will point back to the original Blake Lapthorn and Linnell sites but gradually, we will bring functionality into the new combined company website.
The second project will be to roll-out our intranet. The first step will be to overlay it on top of the two existing intranets. Over time, however, we will develop the intranet’s functionality and bring it into the portal.
From then on, everything is up for grabs. We have listed what we want to do with the portal. We’ll have a steering committee made up of business representatives, marketing and myself, and we’ll be trawling for ideas using the portal as
a vehicle to collect feedback. As partners start to use it and see the potential that is there, they’ll come up with their own suggestions. The steering committee will choose the initiatives that best support the firm’s business strategy, looking for quick wins wherever we can.
Several firms have decided to develop their own portals in house. Why did you choose to buy your portal from an external provider?
We are not up to delivering something of that magnitude ourselves and there are enough people in the market without me having a go as well – I’m definitely in the “let’s buy it” mode. We had the choice of buying an industry specific or corporate portal. A lot of the legal solution providers have portal offerings and I think most law firms have gone down that route if they haven’t had the capability of developing a portal themselves. We decided, however, that having evaluated the options, the corporate and more generic model met all our criteria.
That decision may be partly due to my background, which is not legal. Because of this, I am keen to benefit from other industries wherever we can. It was easier for us in many ways because we have not purchased many of the other legal products. For example, if we had a legal document-management solution from a particular vendor, we would be restricted to purchasing the portal from the same provider.
How are you going to get people using the portal?
We’re starting small and keeping it simple because the portal has the potential to become too complex for its own good. In the intranet scenario, we’ll be putting basic functionality in place, for example, such things as the telephone directory. We’ll let people get used to using it for simple things and gradually over time, we’ll pilot more sophisticated functionality.
How do you think your portal will impact your firm?
The portal signifies a big step forward for the firm. It will help us create innovative changes to the way we work internally and service our clients. It will also allow us to provide the transparency and knowledge access that our clients require, while at the same time helping us improve internal productivity and efficiency.
