Case Study
HighQ: A professional platform for premium client content
For more than 90 years, international law firm Clyde & Co has been providing a complete service to clients in its core sectors of insurance, transport, energy, infrastructure, and trade and commodities. Today, it has 2,700 lawyers and 5,500 staff in more than 60 offices across six continents and constantly strives to innovate and modernise how it delivers legal services.
One of the firm’s initiatives is to deploy Thomson Reuters HighQ Publisher as an intelligence platform for sharing premium content with its clients. Through insights, support, and a range of resources — such as news updates, articles, webinars, and reports — the firm enhances client relationships and improves their overall experience.
Clyde & Co already used HighQ to create deal rooms to provide a secure, shareable repository for data and documents that clients and colleagues could access as appropriate. When it became clear there was a demand to create a digital knowledge source clients could log into for information and analysis on areas of interest, Clyde & Co audited its existing tech stack. The HighQ Publisher module was one of the options put forward. Impressed by its capabilities as an easy-to-use, professional-looking extranet with granular access controls, Clyde & Co leveraged it to launch its “In Focus” platform.
A dedicated intelligence resource
The initial impetus for creating such a platform came from the firm’s cybersecurity team, who wanted a resource to help guide clients hit by cyber breaches through every stage of the crisis management and risk-mitigation process. This initiative worked so well that the firm is rolling out further dedicated knowledge areas on the In Focus platform for different practice groups. An accountants’ litigation and regulatory strand is now up and running, and the firm plans to launch an area specifically for insurance clients and their policyholders.
The Legal Delivery and Innovation team at Clyde & Co, which led the project, knew they needed a solution the firm could build and manage itself. Doing so ensured everything had the right look and feel while allowing practice groups to upload content quickly. Controlling login access was also important since they meant the solution to be a client-only resource. Additionally, the ability to easily add clients was essential to ensure friction-free access.
Speed also matters. HighQ Publisher eliminates email delays by publishing Word articles quickly and streamlining reviews and approvals. Barker says, “This is great when we are writing an insight or an interpretation on a critical recent legal decision that we want to get out there as soon as we can. It's almost immediate.”
Metadata tagging allows an article to appear in multiple platform areas. So, a piece on employment law that is also relevant to the construction industry will automatically appear in both areas of the platform. “This cross-pollination saves so much time,” adds Barker. “The efficiency is a real benefit.”
Insights at users’ fingertips
While Publisher allows Clyde & Co to pre-approve people from client organisations and set permissions for the content they can access, another vital advantage is that each client user can personalise their experience by setting their own preferences, searches, filters, and alerts. They can choose which topics or regions they are most interested in, what formats they prefer to consume content, and whether — and how frequently — to receive emails or notifications about newly published content.
Having information at clients’ fingertips in a digitised, digestible format means they don’t have to call or email their lawyers to find out about key issues. This capability makes clients’ — and lawyers’ — lives easier and has been extremely well-received. Clients are telling colleagues and contacts about the In Focus platform and encouraging them to use it; it is even used as a selling point in pitches to help the firm attract new business.
“Clients have really liked how it's laid out, how it's easy to see the most recent news first,” explains Barker. “The win has been people sharing our platform with others. That ‘word of mouth’ is a positive reinforcement that we are providing something useful that adds value.”
Within 18 months of launch, almost 200 client organisations had registered to use the platform, with many more to come as it plans to roll out to other practice areas across the firm. Barker and her team can use the audit and reporting functionality to unlock back-end data on activity and engagement. For example, they can track the number of active users, identify the client organisations they belong to, and determine which channels they use to access the platform, such as an email alert.
Again, the firm can filter these metrics to suit their requirements. They can also find out which areas of the platform and types of content are getting the most views, which helps inform content strategy to ensure they focus their attention on the areas most important to clients.
Barker believes having In Focus plays an essential role in strengthening client relationships and building loyalty. “We use it to enhance the client experience. It’s something we can offer as a value-add to our clients,” she says. “There are so many different layers to it, and we’re trying to think smart about what we have on there. We’re evolving and modernising as we need to.”
Clyde & Co
The firm provides legal services to businesses across the world in any sector. Its core practice areas cover insurance; energy, marine, and trade; aerospace and aviation; corporate and advisory; projects and construction; dispute resolution; and regulatory and investigations work.
Challenges
Clyde & Co wanted to create a client-facing intelligence platform to provide guidance and support on legal and regulatory issues via a range of content, including news updates, articles, webinars, podcasts, digitised reports, and trackers.
Benefits
- Gives clients easy access to knowledge, insights, and support
- Enables content uploads in minutes with an easy-to-use interface
- Adds value and enhances the client experience
- Provides a consistent, professional look and feel
- Offers customisable access controls and client preference settings
Increase productivity and boost client satisfaction by leveraging a tech solution designed to efficiently deliver superior work