Many law firms face challenges in the management of their suite
of online resources. Research Monitor is designed to support the
firm in overcoming some of the challenges associated with the ever
increasing demands placed on the knowledge centre. By combining the
functionality of the four RM modules, law firms can realise
benefits in many areas including:
- Negotiate online information renewal contracts
- Cancel underutilised subscriptions
- Provide seamless login to online resources
- Improve charge back rates
- Target training
The number of online information sources for legal, regulatory,
business, and general research information is growing and while
Lexis and Westlaw remain the most frequently discussed, we have
configured Research Monitor to track and manage over
250 online resources.
RM performs the following functions for Westlaw, Lexis, and
other similar services:
- Records and store usernames and passwords and logs on
automatically to the service
- Validate all client matter numbers allowing the user to select
and search against the firm matter list
- Records session comments for all non-billable codes allow the
accounts team to follow up research costs allocated to non-billable
codes
- Records usage information showing activity down to the
individual level, including recording details of all searches and
documents allowing focused training
- Stores a rate card for all searches - dependent on databases
and/or search type of database
- Ability to block searches on expensive databases
RM performs the following functions for Companies House, PACER,
Land Reg, and many other transactional online services:
- Provide desktop access to all users by centrally storing
passwords and enabling seamless logon
- Store transactional rate cards associated with each
service
- Prompt the research to allocate costs to a valid matter number
either at the start of the session or at the point of charge
- Interface with billing system directly feeding cost
disbursement data
