Extranet

Extranets allow law firms and legal departments to share a controlled subset of internal content, such as intranet pages, matter management data, or thought leadership, with clients or other external parties, while the organization retains control over which content is accessible to which external users. Extranets differ from general client portals primarily in origin and scope. An extranet typically extends an existing internal system outward to selected external audiences, often built on the same platform as a firm's intranet or knowledge management investment, rather than being built from the outset as a standalone client facing product. Common building blocks include branded portals or workspaces scoped to a matter, deal, or engagement, structured data collection through forms and spreadsheets, document centralization, task and project tracking, and dashboards that surface progress to both internal and external users. In practice, the functional distinction between extranets and client portals has narrowed considerably, and the terms are often used interchangeably by vendors and buyers alike, with the same underlying platform sometimes marketed as an extranet in one context and a client portal or deal room in another. Generative AI is increasingly embedded across these workspaces, summarizing matter activity for external stakeholders and answering questions from a firm's permission aware knowledge base rather than requiring a person to compile updates manually. See also, Client Portals.