BigHand has today announced the launch of the latest version of its market-leading Legal Resource Management software, adding multiple ’game-changing features’. The product enhancement ‘is supported by recent market research, which uncovered that 82% of firms globally have implemented, or are planning to implement Resource Management technology in the next 24 months.
BigHand Resource Management is a cloud-based legal work allocation tool that allows law firms to identify appropriately skilled resources, forecast utilization, manage workloads and add structure to career development for lawyers.
The release comes in response to growing market challenges impacting legal work allocation, including spiraling associate salaries, lateral hiring and rising client demand for more cost-effective resourcing. It offers new features and functionality to help firms allocate work equitably and at the right cost, while advancing opportunities for lawyer career development to support retention and recruitment strategies.
The release boasts a live digital opportunities board which lawyers can filter to find and register interest in work that sits outside of their skillsets or experience, enabling firms to respond to the demand from associates for better development processes. In addition, lawyers can log skills and qualifications across multiple practice areas to explore new development opportunities, while increasing visibility of resource pools available on a firm-wide basis.
Firms can now draw comparisons of total and average chargeable hours across the firm by data points including gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation, to track progress against firm-wide DEI goals.
Integration enhancements allow firms to implement a ‘single source of the truth’ by pulling in essential data from any other operational legal. In particular, the software’s integration with information barrier systems gives firms complete control over who sees what in the system, by restricting access and visibility to specific clients and matters in line with firms’ internal processes.
Dave Cook, Global Director for Resource Management at BigHand states “We’re thrilled to release the latest version of Resource Management, with a number of exciting new features and enhancements developed in direct response to feedback from our global client base.”
“We are experiencing a huge surge in demand for our solution as firms look to create an effective and equitable working environment for their employees and clients. The new features like enhanced integration options, advanced reporting capabilities and more options to support lawyer career development has been driven by client-demand so we’re very excited to get this release in law firms hands.”
This latest release follows BigHand’s announcement that it had acquired data-analysis organization Digitory, which will enable them to offer enhanced DEI dashboards and reporting capabilities within their Resource Management solution.
