Law firm DLA Piper intends to implement a BA Insight and FAST enterprise search solution for all of its 4200 lawyers located across 31 countries and 77 offices throughout the Americas, Asia Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.

DLA Piper will consolidate search technologies to a single global solution using BA Insight's Longitude and TotalView for Legal solutions, which layer on top of the Microsoft SharePoint and FAST platforms to assist lawyers in finding information, documents and subject matter experts no matter where they are in the world.

According to Jon Short, Head of Applications for DLA Piper in EMEA and Asia Pac, the firm wanted to standardise on one enterprise search solution worldwide that could leverage its investments in the Microsoft SharePoint and FAST platforms, and easily connect to a myriad of other legal IT systems in use at the firm.

"We have experience with the leading enterprise search solutions in the legal market. That experience and our research has led us to BA Insight and FAST as the correct, strategic direction for enterprise search at DLA Piper," said Short.

"It's clear that FAST is now a critical and core part of Microsoft's strategy and it is clear that BA Insight is the right technology to exploit FAST in a legal environment."

Short anticipates that BA Insight will make search faster and easier, and help produce more relevant results.

"Our goal is not just about finding golden nuggets of explicit knowledge, it is about facilitating the extraction of the more valuable tacit knowledge through linking the right lawyers together across the DLA Piper world," explained Short. "Through greater use of search-based applications, BA Insight will help us find the best resources to help our clients."