Canadian Lawyer

June 2009

The most widely read magazine for Canadian lawyers

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search capability. "If not, you'd get far too few results or the search engine would freeze, and you'd get no results. Everybody knew there was a wealth of material in the DMS, but too often they were unable to find it." The solution? Cassels Brock recent- ly implemented Interwoven Universal Search (IUS), a "smart search" add-in for the DMS. Smart search tools work something like Google, something like Windows' desktop search, enabling very fast, effective keyword searching of even huge repositories spread across multiple offices. They automatically and continu- ously index documents to make it easier and faster to find them later. Firms with highly developed knowl- edge management programs, may not see as pressing a need for smart search. They rely on a range of manual and semi-automated methods to capture precedents. But using those methods is increasingly a losing battle as reposito- ries balloon crazily thanks to electronic document creation and e-mail. More and more firms will likely go the route Cassels Brock has. Indeed, smart search may eventually render traditional knowledge management methods obsolete. If you can always find exactly the document or docu- ments you need with a simple key- word search, why go to the trouble of manually capturing and indexing precedents? There are, in fact, argu- ments for continuing to use traditional methods too, but that likely won't stop smart search becoming an essential application for law firms. Cassels Brock considered only one other product besides IUS, MindServer from Recommind. They were the only two with versions tailored for use in law firms. Autonomy, which acquired Interwoven earlier this year after Cassels Brock had made its decision, is the market leader in enterprise search. But the effort to customize it for a law firm would be considerable. After devising a detailed set of crite- ria and testing the two products against them, IUS and MindServer ended up scoring almost identically. But IUS would be easier to integrate with the Interwoven DMS. And one feature that boosted MindServer's score — the expert locator function — is really only useful in larger, multi-office firms. Cassels Brock rolled out IUS in March after a several-week pilot. Toronto-based knowledge manage- ment consultancy ii3 Inc., headed by vice president of market development and general counsel Joshua Fireman, did the implementation and trained Cassels Brock's IT staff to manage and support the product. Today, IUS is delivering exactly what the firm hoped: fast, effective searching. At a demonstration for partners, Jason Arbuck, chairman of the firm's practice support committee, showed one kind of search. Arbuck, a part- ner in the financial services group, was working on a loan agreement and needed a clause related to intellectual property. He had written one himself, 22 JUNE 2009 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com Untitled-2 1 2/11/09 12:24:44 PM

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