Client portals for law firms: buy, configure or build?

Most law firms arrive at the client portal question the same way. Clients are asking for visibility that email cannot provide, documents are moving through channels the firm would rather they did not, and someone has calculated how much fee earner time goes on status update calls.

The question then becomes which route to take. Your practice management vendor will offer a portal module. Several SaaS products will configure something within weeks. Or the firm can build exactly what it needs. Each is right in some circumstances and wrong in others.

This guide sets out the three options honestly, including where a bespoke build is the wrong answer. We build bespoke systems for law firms, so we have a view, but a portal that does not fit the firm is a waste of money whoever supplies it.

What a law firm client portal actually needs to do

Before comparing options it is worth being precise about requirements, because portals differ more than their marketing suggests.

At minimum, a legal client portal gives clients secure access to their matters: documents, progress, and a channel for communication that is not email. Beyond that, requirements diverge sharply by firm.

Access control is the requirement that separates legal portals from general business portals. Permissions have to work at matter level rather than client level, because a client with several matters may have different people entitled to see each one. Where information barriers are in place, the portal has to respect them. Paragraph 6.3 of the SRA Code of Conduct requires solicitors to keep client affairs confidential, and a portal that makes the wrong document visible to the wrong person is a conduct issue, not a bug.

Audit trails matter for the same reason. Who accessed what, when, and what they did with it needs recording in a form that can be produced later if it is ever questioned.

Integration determines whether the portal saves time or creates work. If matter data has to be entered twice, once in the practice management system and once in the portal, fee earners will stop using it within a month.

Option one: your practice management system's portal

Most practice management vendors now offer a client portal as part of their platform. If your firm already runs one of these systems and is content with it, this is the first option to evaluate.

The advantage is integration. The portal is built against the same data as the case management system, so matter information, documents and progress updates flow through without additional work. Setup is comparatively quick and there is one supplier to deal with.

The constraint is that the portal is a module of a product. It does what the vendor decided a portal should do. If your firm needs something the vendor has not built, the answer is usually to wait for the roadmap or to accept the gap. It also deepens dependency on a single supplier: changing practice management system later means changing the portal too.

This route suits firms whose requirements are close to standard and who are committed to their existing platform.

Option two: a configurable SaaS portal

A number of products offer configurable client portals, some legal specific and some general professional services tools. These are quick to deploy, priced per user or per month, and require no development.

They suit firms that want something working soon, whose requirements are relatively simple, and who are willing to work within the product's structure.

The limitation is almost always integration. These products connect to popular platforms through standard connectors. If your firm runs a practice management system without an existing connector, or has customised its system substantially, the integration either does not exist or has to be built on top of the product. At that point the cost advantage narrows considerably, and the firm ends up maintaining a custom integration to a product it does not control.

The second limitation is fit. A configurable product will get a firm to roughly the right place. Firms with distinctive matter workflows, unusual reporting requirements, or multi jurisdictional complexity tend to find the last twenty percent is where the difficulty lies.

Option three: a bespoke build

A bespoke portal is built to the firm's specification: your matter structure, your access rules, your integrations, your interface. There are no constraints imposed by what a product supports.

This route is right when integration requirements are genuinely complex, when matter workflow is specific to how the firm operates, when the portal is a significant part of the client experience at the larger end of the market, or when the firm expects the system to evolve over years rather than being replaced.

It costs more initially and takes longer to reach launch. It is a real commitment. The return is a system that fits, that the firm owns, and that carries no per user licence fee as the firm grows.

It is the wrong answer for a small firm with straightforward requirements and no unusual integrations. We would tell you that rather than sell you a build you do not need.

How to decide

Five questions usually settle it.

• Question

  Points towards buy or configure

  Points towards bespoke

  How complex is your
  integration requirement?

  Standard practice management
  system with existing connectors

  Customised or unusual systems,
  several intergrations

  How distinctive is your
  matter workflow

  Close to standard for your
  practice areas

  Specific processes that took
  years to develop

  How important is the portal
  to client experience?

  Useful but not differentiating

  A visible part of how the firm
  serves clients

  What is your three to five
  year view?

  Likely to review the whole stack

  The system should evolve with the firm

  What scale are you operating
  at?

  Smaller firm, straightforward
  requirements

  Larger or multi jurisdictional
  practice

If your answers sit mostly in the left column, evaluate your practice management vendor's portal first. If they sit mostly in the right, a bespoke build is likely to be more economical over time even though it costs more to start.

What a bespoke portal project involves

For firms considering the bespoke route, the shape of the project matters as much as the technology.

We start with discovery rather than a proposal: time with the people who will use the system, understanding how matters move through the firm, and establishing what the portal genuinely needs to do. Requirements differ sharply between practice areas, and a portal designed only around one department tends to be resisted by the others.

For larger builds we usually recommend proving the core workflow with a defined group of users before committing to the full system. That reduces risk substantially and gives the firm something real to evaluate.

Timelines depend on integration complexity. A portal with one clean integration and a defined user group is a shorter project than one connecting several systems across jurisdictions. We scope after discovery rather than quoting upfront, because a figure given before understanding the requirement is a guess.

Considering a portal for your firm?

Several of our largest clients are international law firms, and we build the secure portals and internal systems they rely on. If your firm is weighing up the options, we are happy to give an impartial view, including telling you if a bespoke build is not the right answer.

An initial conversation is free and carries no obligation. Get in touch at hello@16i.co.uk or call +44 (0)1242 654 000.