DW Intranet Case Study

Intelligent Intranets for Smarter Lawyering

How Dickinson Wright PLLC Used Generative AI Inside Their SharePoint Portal to Transform Attorney Productivity

Introduction

Dickinson Wright PLLC is a full-service law firm with a reputation for putting clients first and delivering practical, results-oriented legal services. Operating across multiple offices and driven by a commitment to continuous improvement, the firm recognized that its internal technology infrastructure was no longer keeping pace with the demands of a modern legal practice. What began as a search for a better intranet became a wholesale transformation, one that placed AI-powered intelligence at the center of how attorneys access information, collaborate, and serve clients every day.

The Challenge

A Legacy Platform Holding a Modern Firm Back

For years, Dickinson Wright relied on DW Connection, an intranet built on SharePoint On Premises. The platform used classic page layouts that were not mobile responsive, meaning attorneys working on smaller screens faced a frustrating, fragmented experience. Navigation was inconsistent, branding lacked cohesion, and the overall environment had fallen well behind the expectations of an increasingly mobile and distributed workforce.

More critically, the firm was drowning in information it could not efficiently surface. Dickinson Wright had no shortage of data; people records, client histories, matters, billing information, and firm policies; but finding the right information at the right moment required emails, phone calls, and manual searches through disconnected systems.

The firm’s “Dickinson Daily” experience, the daily operational dashboard covering conflict checks and audit requests needed clarity and consistency. Attorneys were uncertain about which items required action, in what order, and with what urgency. Incremental improvements were no longer sufficient. The firm needed a fundamental reimagination of its digital workspace.

The Solution

An AI-Enabled SharePoint Online Platform Built for Legal Practice

Dickinson Wright defined a clear strategic objective: migrate fully to SharePoint Online and transform the intranet into a centralized, AI-enabled hub for collaboration and productivity. The firm partnered with KLST, leveraging its deep experience designing and implementing intranet platforms specifically for the legal industry.

At the core of the new platform is an AI-powered, natural language search experience. Rather than returning lists of documents, the system generates concise, AI-driven overviews that summarize key details including matter status, industry context, billing information, and recent activity, all surfaced in seconds.

AI Query

Attorneys can now query the system the way they would ask a colleague:

What are the key indemnification obligations in the Master Services Agreement with Acme Corp?
Has our client ever waived consequential damages in a prior settlement with this counterparty?

The system responds with a concise, structured summary — no document hunting required.

KEY SOLUTION COMPONENTS

What Was Built and How It Works

AI-Powered Centralized Search

Natural language queries replace keyword searches. The platform synthesizes data from across clients, matters, attorneys, billing history, and conflicts into a single, structured AI-generated response, eliminating the need to navigate multiple systems.

Specialized AI Agents

Purpose-built agents go beyond search. One assists with pricing evaluations grounded in historical firm data. Another guides attorneys through client onboarding conversationally, evaluating entries against past patterns to suggest improvements and reduce rejection rates.

Redesigned Dickinson Daily Dashboard

The daily operational view now organizes conflict checks, audit requests, and announcements into a clear green-yellow-red status system, giving attorneys instant visibility into what requires action and at what urgency level.

Role-Based Personalization

Content is targeted by persona. Attorneys see dashboards centered on unread conflict checks and critical matter tasks. Non-attorney staff see tools and resources relevant to their responsibilities. The right information reaches the right person without additional effort.

Transformed Firm Directory

Attorneys can now filter colleagues by spoken languages, bar admissions, office location, and practice area. Expert identification that once required multiple calls and emails is now completed in seconds.

Deep Microsoft 365 Integration

The intranet connects seamlessly with Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Power BI, Intapp, NetDocuments, and Entegrata. Teams' presence indicators are embedded directly into directory contact cards. SharePoint becomes a true central hub rather than another silo.

Security Was Non-Negotiable

All AI-generated responses are security trimmed, users only see information they are authorized to access. Ethical walls and confidentiality obligations are preserved at the infrastructure level, not managed through policy alone.

The Outcome

Intranet Redefined. Intelligent Lawyering Enabled.

The transformation of Dickinson Wright’s intranet represents a new model for what a law firm’s digital workspace can be and not a repository attorneys tolerate, but an intelligent assistant they rely on. The impact is measurable and immediate.

Instant Client & Matter Summaries

Seconds Expert Identification

Years Billing Trends via Natural Language

Attorneys across the firm can now:

Instantly identify subject matter experts by language, jurisdiction, and practice area
Retrieve precise financial details; last payment dates, amounts, billing trends through plain-language queries
Generate comprehensive client summaries on demand without leaving the intranet
Interact with onboarding and pricing workflows conversationally rather than through rigid forms
See real-time colleague availability through embedded Microsoft Teams presence

Key Lessons

What Dickinson Wright Learned?

The transformation surfaced four principles that any firm undertaking a similar journey should internalize:

AI is only as effective as the data behind it. Strong partnerships with data and records teams are not optional, they are foundational.
AI must deliver actionable results, not more information. Surfacing the right answer is the goal. Adding to information overload is a failure mode.
Designing for specific personas drives adoption. Generic experiences get ignored. Role-targeted intelligence gets used.
The intranet is infrastructure, not a side project. When treated as a strategic platform, it becomes one of the most powerful productivity tools a firm can deploy.

What’s Next

Extending Intelligence into Intake and Conflict Resolution

Dickinson Wright is now extending the platform’s AI capabilities into client intake and conflict resolution. The goal is to reduce intake processing time, improve pricing decisions, and lower rejection rates. Initial information is gathered through email analysis, with remaining details captured through conversational AI. The system draws from centralized data across clients, matters, attorneys, and historical conflicts, continuously trained on firm-specific patterns to avoid known pitfalls and surface better recommendations with every interaction.

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