Al Tamimi & Company is a full service commercial law firm with seventeen offices across the Middle East. The firm wanted to take advantage of their wealth of local knowledge and cross-sector expertise to provide in-depth research as standard, while staying cost effective for clients. For Patrick Earl, Chief Operating Officer, this presented a key question: “How do you get that knowledge into the head of every lawyer? Delivering the firm’s accumulated knowledge to our clients presents a real practical challenge.” The firm knew investing in Knowledge Management (KM) could provide the answer, however they faced three key challenges.
Their existing KM system was not supporting the firm in the way it should; in the words of Zane Anani, Senior Professional Support Lawyer, “We had a homegrown tool which we built ourselves but it was not user friendly, not attractive and very slow, which discouraged our lawyers from accessing or contributing.” When half the task of effective Knowledge Management is cultural, Al Tamimi & Company needed an engaging and measurable system to work with. Secondly, the firm had decided that any new technology should integrate seamlessly with their document management system, iManage, to be fit for purpose. The final challenge was related to their specific situation in the Middle East, where laws and legislation are not always accessible online. Their KM system needed to accommodate this vast array of information and dispense it efficiently to give their lawyers the edge.
Patrick, Zane and their team initially contacted their counterparts at several global law firms about their systems, which they quickly discovered were either unsuitable for iManage or platforms developed in-house, requiring a large investment. But then a senior KM professional in the UK directed them to Tiger Eye after she was one of the first to see Tiger Eye Blueprint. Blueprint is a companion for iManage Work with in-built workflows to enable easier submission and curation of a firm’s internal know-how. As soon as the team saw a demo Patrick realised Blueprint was the perfect fit. It was the only off-the shelf iManage solution providing reporting into user engagement and topic search trends.
Tiger Eye liaised closely with Al Tamimi & Company throughout to ensure it continually met their requirements. This included the request for dual language searches in English and Arabic, which according to Patrick was “critical to the whole project and not an easy requirement to fulfil, but with Tiger Eye nothing was off the table.” Patrick says, “it was a great experience. I’ve been involved in many software implementations and I have to say this has been one of the best.”
Blueprint has helped Al Tamimi & Company transform their Knowledge Management with an efficient, user-friendly system. Over 400 lawyers at all levels have seamless access to knowhow documents and can add their own with a simple right-click. Every document receives a quality check by KM professionals and is assigned metadata in Arabic or English with a consistent taxonomy. Zane says, “It’s a very intuitive and structured process, maintaining a good level of control while staying efficient”. Their lawyers have given positive feedback throughout rollout on its ease of use and consistency with their intranet. Critically, take-up was high with seven of twelve departments using Blueprint within two months. Patrick credits the system itself as their greatest asset in changing their KM culture; “the beauty of Blueprint is we have confidence in the product.”
Long-term statistics available in Blueprint will also inform the firm’s wider strategy. Usage insights will influence department and individual KPIs and performance reviews, while search trends allow Al Tamimi & Company to prioritise resources in areas of most pressing concern to their clients. Patrick states, “I hope KM professionals at other firms are made aware of Blueprint, because I really think it is a great product which will answer a lot of issues they are facing.” On working with Tiger Eye, Patrick says, “Tiger Eye have been so flexible, so responsive and so enthusiastic about this project. I wouldn’t have any hesitation recommending them.”
Al Tamimi & Company is the largest law firm in the Middle East with 17 offices across 9 countries. Established in 1989, the full-service law firm specialises in advising and supporting major international corporations, financial institutions, government organisations and local and international companies.
