Enhancing Collaboration in a Remote Work Environment | Lexis® Search Advantage

The pandemic applied a stress test on every law firm’s IT and Knowledge Management organization. COVID-19 forced firms to work entirely virtual, and not surprisingly, law firms, by and large, passed the test.

Law firms have made significant investments in their IT and Knowledge Management infrastructure to capitalize on the wealth of knowledge in their firm’s document collection.

According to Vishal Agnihotri, Chief Knowledge Officer of AmLaw 200® firm Hinshaw & Culberson:

“The legal industry is one of the most document-intensive sectors in the global economy, so it’s crucial to have access to the right search tools that enable legal professionals to quickly locate the knowledge they need without having to wade through irrelevant information.”

While sixty percent of attorneys and legal staff have shifted to working entirely virtual, according the Law360 Pulse COVID-19 Real Estate Survey, most attorneys will return to their offices, though perhaps less frequently than before.

According to a December survey by LexisNexis®, attorneys anticipate working remotely two-days per week after the vaccine is widely available, compared to once-a-week prepandemic.¹

The future of work brings a suite of new challenges to the business and practice of law. From onboarding new associates and lateral attorneys to fostering a culture of collaboration, fewer face-to-face meetings mean fewer serendipitous office connections that offer time-saving advice. That lack of natural, in-person collegiality has led many firms to explore innovative solutions to help foster a more collaborative firm culture, one that enables more effective knowledge sharing.     

Law is a business of knowledge. And a firm’s document collection—containing thousands to millions of documents—holds a wealth of knowledge, creating their greatest asset. As such, firms like Hinshaw & Culbertson, with more than 425 lawyers, across 21 offices and two continents—have already implemented Lexis Search Advantage to help their attorneys better leverage that knowledge.

“Lexis Search Advantage is a flexible software offering so it was easily integrated with our firm’s existing document management architecture,” said Agnihotri. “The product provides advanced enrichment and classification of law firm data, then allows Hinshaw’s users to apply the familiar LexisNexis search tools to simultaneously search both internal firm databases and LexisNexis legal content. This delivers broad and deep perspectives across our entire spectrum of resources.”

“Our partners often tell me that our KM search tool [Lexis Search Advantage] revealed to them some piece of very specific work product generated by one of their colleagues; knowledge that would otherwise have been undiscovered,” said Agnihotri.

“This is a crucial benefit of the Lexis Search Advantage tool. It allows our litigation professionals to collaborate more effectively with each other by surfacing relevant information across various practice groups, offices and both our internal and external databases, which in turn helps them to better serve our clients.”

Read: Learn how Hinshaw & Culbertson bolstered their Knowledge Management capabilities with Lexis® Search Advantage.

Learn More: Lexis Search Advantage

See the value Hinshaw & Culbertson discovered with LexisNexis in this video:

1 - Future of Work Survey, LexisNexis. Nov 20 – Dec 11, 2020. N=304