Leading Scottish firm McGrigor Donald has joined the first wave of UK practices to buy the iManage web-based document management package – a system that is taking the US legal market by storm.
The 58-partner firm joins Jeffrey Green Russell, Sinclair Roche & Temperley and several other as-yet-unnamed UK firms in adopting iManage, which has only been available in the UK since October 1998.
McGrigors' purchase coincides with the restructuring of its IT, information services and training functions into a single 'knowledge management' department, headed by partner Christine McLintock, a former member of McGrigors' corporate banking team.
McLintock said the implementation of iManage would cater for 375 users and was part of an overall strategy dedicated to building know-how within the firm.
McGrigors is also developing an intranet front-end to provide a single point of access to all of the firm's information.
McLintock said her firm had decided on iManage because it was designed for the web, was specifically aimed at lawyers and had excellent US reference sites.
"It seems to be part of a new breed of document management systems. It has an internet front-end and, looking forward, could provide client access to limited databases – if appropriate."
McLintock said she had visited a user group meeting in the US earlier this year and was impressed with the feedback from large law firm users.
"Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, one of the biggest West Coast firms with 1,500 users, was particularly enthusiastic," she added.
McLintock said her firm had originally drawn up a shortlist of more traditional document management suppliers, but had been alerted to iManage's system after a speech by IT consultant Neil Cameron in February.
She said that although Open Text's Livelink had come in a close second, iManage held the edge because it was focused more exclusively on the legal market.
"You can more or less use it out of the box," she added.
The iManage implementation is currently being rolled out at McGrigors' Glasgow office, with its Edinburgh and London offices expected to follow shortly.
The firm is also changing over to Microsoft Word from WordPerfect 6.1 at the same time.
l CSE, the supplier of iManage in the UK, recently appointed London IT consultancy G3 Consulting as its new legal market business partner.