Guidelines For Designating End Users
For Optimal Desktop Use
The Law Department Efficiency Desktop is designed to provide a tool to facilitate communication, information sharing and collaboration between and among a company’s in-house lawyers and its preferred outside counsel and suppliers. The Desktop facilitates not only greater efficiencies in all areas of legal practice and knowledge management, it is also designed to facilitate the growth of strong, more intimate and committed partnering relationships between the corporate client and its preferred law firms and suppliers. In this regard, it is the central tool for building and managing a Preferred Outside Counsel & Supplier Network.
To derive maximum benefit from the Desktop, it is important that all individuals in a law firm or vendor organization who work on client matters and are responsible for the health and growth of the client relationship have access to the Desktop. This includes legal professionals – partners, associates, paralegal assistants and their respective clerical staff who would normally access information about the client or touch work product produced by the firm for the client – as well as, law firm management, administrative and marketing professionals concerned about staying informed about the client, evaluating and ensuring client satisfaction and expanding the business relationship. Similarly, persons directly involved in service delivery and maintaining customer relationships on behalf of vendors of law-related services upon which the company regularly or frequently relies should have Desktop access.
Fundamentally, as indicated above, law firms and legal suppliers have two types of internal Desktop users – those involved in providing substantive services and those involved in managing the overall customer relationship. It is particularly important that every person involved in producing and/or delivering substantive services or work product and/or engaging in direct dialogue with the client have a separate username and password to access the client law department’s Desktop. This promotes client/law firm/supplier collaboration at deeper levels and facilitates accurate tracking of the use of the Desktop and materials uploaded to its database by members of the clients’ Preferred Outside Counsel & Supplier Network.
LDDS law department customers make the initial determination of what law firms and legal suppliers will be offered access to the law department’s Desktop. It is the responsibility of the individual law firms and suppliers to advise the client and LDDS of the names and positions of personnel desiring Desktop access and the primary purpose for such access (e.g., relationship partner, substantive work on client matters, clerical assistance on client matters, invoicing/accounting, technology management, administrative management, relationship management/marketing), and for letting the client and LDDS know of any changes to your personnel access requests.