Portals are all about getting the right information to the right people at the right time so that they can work more effectively. Behind all the hype they know there has to be a better way to do things.
To find the information they need, they do not want to start an application, start a search engine, hunt for a piece of information, write it down or cut and paste it into a document, and then start the process all over again for the next bit of information that they need. Lawyers want the computer to bring them the information they need, preferably on a single web-browser screen, without having to hunt for it.
