Data integration – knot a problem?

Law firms may be no strangers to the use of metrics to guide decision-making. But with a wealth of new demands and new digital systems put in place since the pandemic, are they forming enough close-knit bonds between systems? Briefing editor Josh Adcock discovers how firms are faring when it comes to weaving data from across solutions into new, valuable insights.

The phantom form of big data has haunted professional services – legal included – for some years, and few organisations seem to have fully got a grasp on how to leverage data as successfully as businesses like Meta and Amazon. Yet, law firms are just now – in the wake of being forced to digitise and digitalise more of their systems and processes over the last two years – waking up to the vast potential of their data stores.

The first step on that journey, however, can’t be taken without addressing the systemic barriers to surfacing and sharing data. At Forsters, chief information officer Anthony Stables says integrating business-critical systems has been a challenge, highlighting the firm’s legacy practice management system (PMS) as a significant thorn in its side. “It’s very hard to get any integration going with any of our other systems because it’s a legacy, client-server application. It doesn’t have a good API, and that has a big impact when it comes to accessing and understanding our data.”

Even where systems don’t totally block data-sharing, optimising data surfacing is a priority. At HFW, global director of information technology Mark Parr says there’s been a significant increase in demand for data self-sufficiency in the last two years – and his goal is to develop that capacity further in the future.

“I want fee earners to draw the information that they want, to be able to manipulate a data feed so it gives them the data they want, not rely on what I think they should have. That’s been a huge challenge,” Parr says.

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