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How a 1,000-attorney US law firm gave its lawyers instant access to the resources they need.
Stinson LLP is a US law firm with 1,000 attorneys across 12 offices. Its library team was running an outdated integrated library system that made it slow and frustrating for lawyers to find the digital resources their practice groups relied on.
By switching to Soutron, the team built a single “Collections and Connections” portal that links attorneys directly to curated resources, practice group pages, and external databases like Westlaw and LexisNexis from one access point.
Law firm Stinson LLP takes pride in their commitment to delivering extensive legal knowledge to their clients. The firm’s 1,000 attorneys operating across 12 offices in the U.S.A. believe complex legal challenges are best approached with sharp insight and creative solutions. Stinson provides creative insightful guidance to their clients by combining industry knowledge and business acumen to deliver the best legal services possible.
The firm also takes pride in its Research Systems and Services team, which recently upgraded to the Soutron cloud-based ILS to facilitate faster and simpler access to information.
“Soutron customer service and training are proactive and wonderful to work with.”
Brian D. McCann
Systems and Knowledge Management Manager
With a decreasing physical collection and increasing use of digital materials, Systems and Knowledge Management Manager Brian McCann saw the need for the creation of a new knowledge portal that would enable practice groups to quickly find the exact online resources they needed.
Brian envisioned a legal library catalog of legal “Collections and Connections” for the firm’s practice groups, transforming the library from a physical cul-de-sac destination into a more relevant knowledge portal.
He wanted to reduce the frustration the library’s staff had with their current Integrated Library System (ILS) and minimize the effort required by the lawyers to quickly access inside and outside resources needed for their practice groups.
Luckily, Brian had seen Soutron at a legal conference and knew several colleagues who had switched from their legacy EOS.Web system to Soutron and decided to investigate switching over also.
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As Brian began collaborating with Soutron, he quickly learned to appreciate how much easier it was to use the product’s search discovery functions in addition to how easy it was to edit the library’s user interface than it was using the firm’s legacy system.
In July of 2021, the 9-member library team, half of which are dedicated to research, began the development of the firm’s new knowledge portal, collaborating with the firm’s practice groups to create custom searches for each practice group that link the firm’s lawyers to the latest materials and information that the firm has acquired.
As those searches were refined, custom acquisition workflow routines to support access to those materials were created along the way.
The team also created a list of curated resources that the firm’s lawyers access on a regular basis such as Westlaw and LexisNexis, supplying direct access by linking to books or other materials held in those databases.
The firm’s new single-source “Collections and Connections” Soutron portal also provides links to intranet pages developed for each practice group, creating a powerful knowledge management portal that the firm’s lawyers can rely on to deliver the extensive legal knowledge they need.
By upgrading their ILS to Soutron, Stinson was able to provide their lawyers with a much more efficient and effective knowledge portal, easing information access for their lawyers, while helping the library team members work smarter and more efficiently.
Looking to the future, since the Soutron system can catalog any type of item, the library team is looking forward to using the built-in Soutron Archive capabilities to digitize cabinets of materials that had not previously been included in the library database.
To find out more about Stinson LLP, and the range of legal services available, visit their website for details: www.stinson.com
To find out how you can migrate to a fast, secure, cloud-based legal library management system to support your law firm, book a 20 minute discovery call with us today, see below.
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A dedicated integrated library system (ILS) gives law firm attorneys a secure, single search portal that connects them to physical collections, digital subscriptions and curated external databases such as Westlaw and LexisNexis from one access point. Rather than searching multiple disconnected systems, lawyers can find the exact resources their practice group needs in fewer steps, reducing research time and administrative friction for library staff.
Migrating from a legacy integrated library system such as EOS.Web to a modern cloud-based ILS removes the infrastructure overhead of on-premise maintenance, improves search and discovery functions, and gives library teams more control over the user interface without specialist technical support. Cloud-based systems also scale across multiple office locations, making them well suited to large law firms operating across different cities or jurisdictions.
A legal knowledge portal built on a library management system allows library teams to create custom searches tailored to individual practice groups. Each search surfaces the most relevant materials, links to intranet pages and connects to external legal databases, reducing the effort lawyers need to find specialist resources. This transforms the library from a passive repository into an active knowledge tool that supports day-to-day legal work across the firm.
Yes. A modern integrated library management system can catalog physical books, digital e-resources and archived materials within a single platform. This means law firms with legacy cabinets of unrecorded physical documents can digitize and index that content alongside their active collections, making previously inaccessible materials searchable for the first time and supporting long-term knowledge management across the firm.
