Five Years In: Why Munger Moved Beyond Their Homegrown Lakehouse

How do you build a law firm data platform that actually gets used, and know when it’s time to evolve beyond it?In this episode, Reanna Martinez, Director of Innovation, Systems, and Data at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, shares the firm’s multi-year journey building a modern, cloud-based data lakehouse on Azure. From standardizing data at the point of entry to consolidating employee, financial, and matter data into a centralized platform, Reanna explains how Munger transformed fragmented information into a trusted enterprise asset.She walks through why the firm initially chose to build in-house, how governance and security shaped every architectural decision, and what five years of hands-on experience taught her team about scalability, resourcing, and long-term sustainability. Reanna also breaks down the signals that indicated it was time to evolve toward a purpose-built data platform, and what other firms should understand before embarking on a similar path.Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(01:50) Reanna Martinez’s career path into systems and data(03:52) Establishing a firmwide data foundation at Munger(05:09) Governance constraints that shaped innovation decisions(06:41) Creating a centralized platform to eliminate data silos(09:35) Why the firm chose to build its platform internally(12:12) Key lessons learned from building a homegrown lakehouse(21:53) How AI changes expectations for secure data platforms(28:52) Reflections on data access, insights, and evolving deliveryConnect with our guest:Reanna Martinez on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reannamartinez/ Learn more about Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP: https://www.mto.com/ Connect with Tom:Tom Baldwin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tombaldwin/ Learn more about Entegrata: https://www.entegrata.com