Norton Rose is set to switch document management platforms – from Hummingbird to iManage.

The 200-partner international firm has bought a site licence for iManage's full WorkSite product suite, comprising document management system and collaborative working applications, plus knowledge management, workflow and portal functionality.

The move comes as a blow to iManage's main competitor, Hummingbird, as Norton Rose was one of the largest UK-based users of Hummingbird's content management platform, having purchased the entire Enterprise suite of products, including Cyberdocs, DocsFusion, PowerDocs and Hummingbird EIP.

A December 2000 statement from the supplier states that its sale to Norton Rose "reinforces Hummingbird's global leadership in providing complete enterprise software solutions in the legal market".

A project insider said this time around Norton Rose chose not to run a formal selection process, instead adhering to its own well-defined strategy.

Norton Rose's IT department, headed by IT director Jeff Roberts, is now preparing for a global roll-out of WorkSite across the firm's network of 19 offices covering Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

It is understood the firm hopes to have completed the migration of its London headquarters by September.

Roberts' IT staff are already working on the project with a consulting team from Baker Robbins and Company.

Andrew Levison, head of Baker Robbins' UK technology consulting unit, said his company would be helping Norton Rose roll-out WorkSite across all offices.

Baker Robbins' global appointment as consultant to the project follows a commission last year to draw up a technology strategy for the firm, which was delivered in November.

According to an official statement on the move, Norton Rose based its decision on robustness of system architecture and matter-centric collaboration functionality.

Support for e-mail management applications was also a key criterion in Norton Rose's evaluation. This is perhaps unsurprising, given the recent e-mail scandal that engulfed the firm and featured in the national press after a fee earner forwarded a saucy personal e-mail to colleagues and friends who leaked it into the public domain.

At the time of writing, iManage's e-mail management module is still in development. But according to an official statement, Norton Rose is planning to buy the extra module as soon as it is released, to help fee earners better manage the e-mails and attachments that now constitute the majority of correspondence between clients and fee earners.

Geoff Hornsby, head of iManage's UK office, said: "In today's global marketplace, it is essential for international law firms such as Norton Rose to function as a coherent unit throughout their many offices worldwide."

However, the move also represents a significant turnaround for the law firm itself. One person involved in the project said that it was extremely rare for a large law firm to switch document management suppliers just two years after a major upgrade.

In an official press release, Jeff Roberts, IT director at Norton Rose, said WorkSite was a robust and fee earner friendly system.

He added that iManage "[has] an established customer base with similar firms to Norton Rose and demonstrated [that it] understand[s] the complex nature of our market".

Roberts declined to comment on the reasons for the decision to switch document management suppliers at this time.

Liz Maloney, UK country manager at Hummingbird, said: "Norton Rose is still a Hummingbird customer as they have our Legal Key system. They may have taken a decision on one product strategy direction, but this is fairly normal in the software industry. We hope to get them back on our environment in due course."