How does technology help a law firm manage its relationships with in-house counsel?
Spadafino: First and foremost, a stable and well organized information system enables attorneys to be as responsive as possible by providing them the tools they need to do their job. Once you get beyond this most basic requirement, you begin to look at facilitating the exchange of information that takes place during the life of a matter. Technologies such as an extranet, which allow clients to access information about their matters at their convenience, help in this area. In fact, our work with extranets began several years ago when an existing client asked us to provide this capability. Once our attorneys became aware of this capability, it was offered to more clients and its use has grown quite a bit. Our extranets offer status information, document collections, contact lists, calendars, and other information related to an individual matter. Finally, you must remember that in-house counsel may have specific technology requirements based on the initiatives put forth by their own Infor
