Use Case
Legal
High-performance search across legal matters, clients, contacts, and firm knowledge
The environment
A large legal knowledge archive, high-value work, and constant pressure to find the right information quickly.
This engagement involved an international law firm operating in the APAC region.
Over time, the firm had built up a significant archive of records relating to legal matters and cases, clients, and contacts. That repository held accumulated precedents, advice, and working knowledge that lawyers needed to reference when handling current matters.
In that kind of environment, search is not a convenience feature. It directly affects efficiency, responsiveness, and the quality of client service.
The solution needed to connect matter-related information, client and contact information, and firm knowledge in a way that lawyers could search predictively and use in practice.
The challenge
An expensive, inflexible search environment was making it harder to scale and harder to find what lawyers needed.
Before engaging Search365, the firm had implemented a legal-specific enterprise search product from Recommind, but it was found to be expensive and inflexible.
This was costing the firm money and resources as its storehouse of records continued to grow. At the same time, the firm was using Aderant Expert to manage legal practice operations, but that system was not properly integrated with Recommind.
The result was wasted time in locating the information lawyers needed across matters, clients, contacts, and legal staff.
Operational impact
Search could not grow with the knowledge base
As the archive of legal records expanded, the existing environment became more costly and less effective for the firm.
User impact
Lawyers were wasting time locating information
Poor integration between practice systems and search created friction in day-to-day legal work.
The approach
A more flexible legal search layer built on Elasticsearch, AI ensemble algorithms, and cross-system integration.
Search365 implemented a solution based on Elasticsearch and AI ensemble algorithms, designed to replace the firm’s company-wide Recommind search engine with a more flexible alternative.
The implementation integrated multiple legal systems, including Aderant Expert for matter-related information and LexisNexis InterAction for clients and matter-related contacts.
Search across legal matters
Lawyers could search more effectively across matter-related information held within the firm’s operating environment.
Client and contact discovery
The solution connected client and contact data through LexisNexis InterAction as part of a unified search experience.
Predictive multifaceted search
The new environment supported predictive search across matters, clients, matter contacts, and legal staff.
Integration with legal practice systems
Aderant Expert and other legal systems were brought into a more connected retrieval model.
Custom ranking by practice area
Search results could be tuned based on the legal practice area to improve relevance.
Ranking by billing value
The implementation also included custom ranking based on the billing value of a particular matter.
Outcomes
Lower cost, greater flexibility, and better service for lawyers and clients.
The stated outcome was a reduction in cost alongside increased flexibility.
The original case study also states that the Search365 solution provided superior service for the firm’s lawyers, increased their efficiency, exceeded client expectations, and helped the firm maintain a competitive edge through more modern enterprise search and innovation.
Reduced cost and increased flexibility
The firm moved away from an expensive, inflexible search environment to one better suited to growth.
Greater lawyer efficiency
Better search across matters, contacts, and staff information improved day-to-day access to the knowledge lawyers relied on.
Better service delivery
The solution was positioned as providing superior service for the firm’s lawyers and supporting stronger client outcomes.
Competitive advantage through better search
The project helped the firm maintain a competitive edge through stronger enterprise search capability and innovation.
Why it matters now
Professional services still run on fast access to trusted internal knowledge.
This case reflects a pattern that remains highly relevant: a document-heavy professional environment, valuable internal knowledge spread across multiple systems, and teams that need faster, more reliable access to information in live client work.
That same search and retrieval foundation now sits inside Search Sensei. Organisations can use it to improve enterprise search on its own, or extend it into broader conversational and AI-supported experiences over time.
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