In an organisation of high-earning individuals, time spent searching for information is time wasted. Four years ago, Norton Rose realised that its existing search facilities could be improved. Practitioners had to use many different search systems to find the information they needed, either from within the firm or from external subscription databases.

“Each of the search systems we used had a different interface and a different way of working, which made it hard work looking for information,” says Ann Halpern, director of practice and organisational management at Norton Rose. “We wanted to move to a one-stop shop where a single enquiry could bring back search results from all sources. Our users told us they wanted something that was really simple and intuitive to operate.”

Norton Rose received written proposals from seven search engine providers and had live demonstrations from four of them. Ann Halpern preferred to ignore the canned demonstrations that some suppliers offered and invited them to work in the Norton Rose environment. “We wanted to be sure that any solution could do what it claimed to do when it came to testing with our material and in our environment. We were concerned that the demos at the beauty parade might have been orchestrated beyond their real capability,” she says.

The live presentations confirmed that most products were unable to fulfill two key criteria - the integration of external sources and the highlighting of keyword fields in search results. The Enterprise Search Platform from FAST performed well in the tests and was selected for its speed of operation, flexibility, ability to work with multiple sources, and its ability to return the most relevant results.

Solution
The Norton Rose team worked closely with FAST from the start in building the search facility that would be called NavigatoR. They began by doing a proof of concept system that gave them the chance to try out their ideas and build confidence to move forward to a full working system. The proof of concept was then presented to a test group of users throughout the organisation for comment and the full working system was launched in February 2007.

One of the main aims was to ensure the system would deliver relevant search results rather than flood the user with useless information. “Our old search engine could only sort the results by date or relevance and it was very poor. Sometimes the results had no obvious relevance at all to the search criteria,” says Ann Halpern. Using the FAST technology, they were able to run searches, examine the results and fine-tune the system to improve the relevance of the results. “It was like turning the dials to get a clear signal on the radio,” says Ann Halpern. “Our users tend to want the most recent information so date has a heavy influence on relevance for our searches. We were able to quickly and easily tune the systems until we were satisfied with the way the results were produced each time.”

The Norton Rose team built the graphical user interface (GUI) for the new system and included a number of filters to allow users to refine their searches. They include: Practice groups, Precedents, Legal updates, Industry, Templates, and Organisations (including clients and organisations that Norton Rose has worked with).

In addition, they designed a feature to help people drill down to the exact information they need once they locate a relevant document. When the search brings back a document that fits the search criteria, the GUI displays a single-column summary of the document down the right-hand side of the screen, with every occurrence of each search term shown in a different colour. Most importantly, the system trawls though several sources to perform a single search. These include: Norton Rose’s internally-generated know-how, best practice guidelines and website; Europa (EU website), the Financial Services Authority and PLC web services.

Benefits and Results

• Saving in time spent searching
While the three previous systems were slow and cumbersome to use, NavigatoR is intuitive and fast. Michael Grenfell, a partner with Norton Rose, sums up his experience: “NavigatoR's a really marvellous new research tool. It's been designed in response to the wishes and needs of the lawyers here at Norton Rose. It enables us, at the touch of a button, to access legal know-how that's up to date and relevant very quickly indeed, and that helps us to provide a more effective, up to date and efficient service to our clients.”

• More relevant search results
The FAST technology has allowed Norton Rose to fine-tune the systems to ensure results are ranked by relevance to the user, while filters allow the search to be further refined.

• One-stop search across multiple sources and languages
Instead of having to use multiple search engines, users now have one intuitive search tool. Caroline Riddy, an associate with Norton Rose, gives a concrete example: “I found it fantastic when I needed to know about the rules on financial promotions. I was looking for a specific memo that I knew had been produced internally, as well as a PLC article - and found both really easily. It's just so helpful to be able to get your hands on both internal and external know-how with just one search.” The solution also allows staff to search in a range of languages including traditional and simple Chinese where previously they were limited to English.

• Document map guides user to information
Finding the relevant document is only part of the search, users need to find the relevant reference within the document. The NavigatoR GUI provides a graphic summary alongside the document itself, guiding the user to every occurrence of each of the search terms. Each term is highlighted in a different colour, providing even more assistance.

• Little or no training required
There has been very little need to provide formal training on how to use the system. The Norton Rose team organised some briefings and distributed a basic two-page guide, but the main tool is the e-learning system accessible from the NavigatoR homepage, which talks users through how it works. The guides have also been translated into various other languages for the firm’s overseas offices.

• More know-how to share
NavigatoR has also streamlined the collection of information for the Norton Rose system. Because it is simpler and more consistent to use, it has encouraged people to submit more information than before, according Fiona Evans, the firm’s head of knowledge management. “There has been a rush to use and to contribute,” she says. “Certainly the statistics suggest that someone is using it every minute of every day.”

• Return on investment - £500,000 annual saving
The savings in time spent on searching for information are expected to make significant cost savings for Norton Rose. Amber Rennie, the firm’s Knowledge Manager Development Manager says: “Most of our junior lawyers are engaged in research using both internal and external resources - an average of an hour and a half each day. The introduction of an integrated and intuitive search of both internal and external resources was expected to save time; at least one third of the time previously spent, and thereby save costs to our clients and enable our lawyers to be more productive and efficient. We valued these savings at about half a million annually.”

FAST can be found at www.fastsearch.com