WEIGHTMANS
same question , and then you ' d spend the next three days working out why and which was the truth . The data warehouse was originally designed to solve that problem .”
“ Many years ago , a consultant who worked in legal IT said to me that , in law firms , if it isn ' t somebody ' s job , it doesn ' t get done ”
STUART WHITTLE CHIEF TECHNOLOGY AND
INNOVATION OFFICER , WEIGHTMANS
When dealing with hundreds of reports , a single source of truth is key , Whittle explains . “ You are essentially looking at the same data through different dimensions , but the total adds up to the same .
“ Fifteen years ago , that wasn ' t always true . You could look at revenue by office , for example , and then add all of that up , then look at revenue by department and add all of that up , and you might get a different answer . That ’ s where our data warehouse has been and continues to be hugely powerful .”
Another innovation Weightmans has developed is its extranet service , which , combined with the firm ’ s case management system , allows Weightmans to provide information to external clients in a secure and innovative way .
“ We might have a real-estate client where we ' re doing a large number of leases , or a big corporation where we do a lot of employment work ,” starts Whittle .
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