Janet Day, IT director at Berwin Leighton, has won the top IT job at the soon-to-be-merged Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP).
Alvin Burrell, IT director at Paisner & Co, will be given a senior post in the new firm, but his job title is yet to be confirmed.
On 23 March, Berwin Leighton and Paisner announced that BLP would roll out a new practice management system (PMS) from Elite to provide a common technology platform for its back-office systems.
The merged firm's IT department will support about 1,000 users.
Elite won the contract after Day attended the company's US user conference in Orlando, Florida in October.
Elite beat rival tenders from nine suppliers, which Day said were whittled down to a shortlist of four – Elite, Resolution, CMS and Keystone – before the final decision was reached.
Paisner and Berwin Leighton use PMS from Norwel, but the merger committee decided it was time to upgrade.
Day said it was fortuitous that both firms used Norwel, but that this would not be a great help in merging the IT systems because the firms were
running different versions.
According to Day, the main requirement in
selecting a new PMS was a browser interface enabling fee earners to search the system easily.
Day also said she liked Elite's web-based dashboard interface because it enabled IT staff to work on the system from home.
She explained that the merged firm would continue to base its web strategy on software from Hummingbird and that there were no integration issues between Hummingbird and Elite.
But she conceded the merger would have an impact on Berwin Leighton's high-profile online services, such as Be-Professional.
Day said: "We have a very aggressive timescale [for the integration project]; we expect to have created a common technology platform by the end of the year. It is a large and difficult project, but we are looking forward to it."
David Thorpe, Elite's general manager for Europe, said Day's attendance at the conference in Florida "played a compelling part in Berwin Leighton Paisner's decision to choose Elite".
Burrell said: "The first priority is integrating our systems… the organisational structure is still under discussion."
The merger will create 116 partners and 430 fee earners. The firm's projected turnover for 2000-01 is £88m, with £31m generated by the corporate practice and £32m in property work.
Key clients of the new firm will include Tesco, Prudential, Great Universal Stores, Barclays, AON and Legal & General.