Banking giant HSBC has signed up Mayer Brown JSM to its knowledge-sharing venture, taking the tally of law firms sharing legal know-how with the bank to 11.

HSBC officially rolled out its SmartSearch software, which allows its in-house legal team to access know-how and precedents at panel firms, in January with 10 panel firms. Mayer Brown's data will now be available to HSBC by the end of the month.

HSBC is also in talks with US law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman and hopes to be able to access some of
its internal information through the software by the end of the year.

HSBC UK head of legal Richard Hennity told Legal Week: "The SmartSearch system is now up and running and allows us direct access to know-how from a number of our firms.

"We have the capability in place to perform searches into the firm's internal knowledge base much in the way Google can search public sites."

HSBC knowledge management project manager Matthew Whalley added: "The amount of information shared depends on the relationship we have with the firms.

"We tackled the easy stuff first, such as know-how publications and we are working up to internal law firm systems and precedents. We are planning to hook it up to our internal systems and stand our own precedents alongside information from the firms."

The rollout of Smart-Search follows a pilot scheme last autumn involving five panel firms, including Norton Rose and Allen & Overy.

It came as a growing band of clients pressed for access to their panel firms' knowledge management.

In June last year, a group of corporates, including Cisco and Chevron Phillips, combined to develop networking website Legal OnRamp, which provides in-house counsel with free access to major law firms' precedents.