Barker Booth & Eastwood, a long established firm of solicitors based in the North West, has chosen TikitTFB as their official solutions partner to replace their existing IRIS AIM Evolution Accounts system and introduce a comprehensive case and document management system firm-wide.

 

The 50 user system will be deployed in phases with the accounts and desktop components scheduled to go-live during September. The second phase will concentrate on developing the case management system including the creation of caseflows for their Personal Injury and Conveyancing departments, and is expected to be completed before the end of the year.

 

The firm had been using AIM for a number of years with many of the precedents and processes unchanged since it was first instated. Tracy Kirkland and Sue Pilkington, Practice and Accounts Manager respectively, felt there was a need to move the firm forward and provide an improved way of working. Following a visit to the 2010 Legal IT show, they reviewed the upgrade path being offered by IRIS as well as a number of other vendors including Eclipse and Linetime before selecting TikitTFB and Partner for Windows as their preferred choice.

 

Anne Morley, Matrimonial Partner at the firm comments, “This kind of investment requires a great deal of trust in your chosen supplier and confidence that the system is going to deliver as promised.

 

“We see Partner for Windows and our relationship with TikitTFB as a long term commitment and we look forward to working with them to develop an advanced system that will allow us to improve the way in which we operate and manage processes on a day-to-day basis, compete more effectively in the market place, and most importantly provide a higher level of customer service to our clients.”

 

Partner for Windows will provide the firm with a fully-flexible and comprehensive solution that can be used across all their practice areas including Personal Injury, Conveyancing, Employment, Family Law, Commercial Property, Wills & Probate, and Civil Litigation. As Partner for Windows is fully-compliant with LSC requirements, the firm will be able to manage their Civil LSC contracts more profitably utilising functionality such as SMP reconciliation, and bulk export to the LSC website. The firm have also chosen to implement PartnerMail, an intelligent email management tool that helps to file emails to and from your inbox to the relevant case file in Partner for Windows, and the SMS module, which will allow them to communicate with clients and third parties quickly and discretely via text message.

SOS Connect’s ability to provide a comprehensive, integrated one stop solution for case and practice management has led mfg Solicitors LLP of Kidderminster to place an order with Solicitors Own Software (SOS) for a 140 user system.

mfg Solicitors provides a balanced portfolio of commercial, agricultural and private client services from five offices in the Worcester, Kidderminster, Bromsgrove, Halesowen and Telford  and has grown to be a regional force through a number of mergers and acquisitions over the years.

ICT partner Peter Simner, who headed up the IT systems evaluation said: “ A firm of our size, that is experiencing considerable growth, needs to ensure that IT keeps up with the competitive pressures in the market as well as the quantity of work which we now need to process. We pride ourselves on providing exemplary service to clients and believe that SOS Connect will help us to continue to improve the quality of service for which we are known.”

mfg looked at several possible replacements for the incumbent Osprey system which could no longer meet the demands of the firm. SOS Connect was selected from a final shortlist of two.

“We preferred SOS Connect because we could see how to standardise and centralise on a single system which would deliver efficiency benefits to all areas of the firm whether for conveyancing case management, probate work or financial accounting,” continued Mr Simner. “The ease of use of SOS is a practical advantage giving us the confidence that the system will be widely used by partners, fee earners and staff alike. We want to work closely with SOS to ensure that we use the system to the full.”

The plan is to fully implement SOS Connect in 2011, using the interim period to clean up data from several databases and prepare for the deployment across five offices.

David McNamara, managing director of SOS said: “mfg Solicitors is taking the steps they need to standardise and implement a system which is flexible and adaptable to all areas of their business and which will keep their systems up to date allowing them to ensure the quality of the services they deliver. Through centralisation and standardisation of business processes, I am confident they will make the efficiency gains they desire but also dramatically improve the accessibility and quality of management information.”

Heavyweight personal injury claims law firm, Minster Law, has announced successful Application-to-Application (A2A) integration with the Ministry of Justice's (MoJ's) new RTA (Road Traffic Accident) claims process Portal.

 

Minster Law handles over 50,000 injury claims every year, and processes over 10% of all RTA injury claims in England and Wales.  A long-time user of Eclipse's Proclaim Case Management Software solution, the practice has been supported by Eclipse in the implementation of A2A integration and is now successfully submitting volume claims.

 

A2A integration gives Minster Law the ability to submit claims directly from Proclaim Case Management to the Portal.  The alternative for law firms is to use the manual 'web browser' interface (developed by the MoJ's technical partners), which has come under much criticism for its inability to deal with high volumes of throughput.

 

Minster Law has over 300 Proclaim users, and was prepared for the new RTA process on 'day 1'.  The practice was the very first to successfully submit a CNF (Claims Notification Form) via A2A.  CIO, Neil Boddy, lead the A2A project and comments on the importance of integration:

 

"For a practice of our profile, it is incredibly important that we move quickly to take advantage whenever legislative changes like this occur.  Given the volume of RTA cases we process, using the 'web browser' method of accessing the Portal was simply never an option, and A2A integration was critical.

 

"We have worked closely with Eclipse to develop an effective A2A solution and despite the many (and well publicised) external setbacks, we are now in a position that gives us great competitive advantage and confidence to continue high volume operations.  After a period of early adoption and cautious monitoring, we are delighted to indicate that our A2A system is working very well indeed.  Our use of Proclaim is vital in maintaining our position as a top-tier claimant PI firm."

It is fair to say that The Uk government does not have a pain free record of implementing successful IT projects and one of the latest ones, the Road Traffic Accident Insurance claims Portal is no exception.

 

The idea behind the Portal is that it will significantly speed up the processing and payment of low cost claims by digitising and streamlining communications between Claimant lawyers, insurers and compensators  leading to all claims being resolved with the new time limit of fifteen days, instead of the previous sixty to ninety days.

 

However, the implementation of the portal was so rushed that the data interface specifications were still in a state of flux when it went live on the 30^th of April and this led to the suspension of  new registrations for several day as soon as it went live to sort out the mess. Even when operational again, users discovered that the manual data entry through the data collection screen was a very laborious and error prone problem, taking an average of  30 minutes per claim and processing errors in the portal have been discovered by around fifty organisations. Such was the degree of unhappiness of the user community that they formed their own 'protest group' on the leading business networking Linkedin'. A typical comment from a disgruntled user commented that the development of the portal was ‘like the blind leading the blind’ and 'The portal people have been fobbing us off forever, saying it’s all in hand’.

 

Leading independent solutions provider Zylpha, who specialise in providing integration, connectivity and security  solutions for Case Management systems, had the foresight to predict the need to develop a direct web based integration solution that extracts and updates the required information from an underlying Case Management system such as SolCase or Visualfiles and were  flexible and responsive enough to maintain alignment with the shifting  interface  specifications throughout the early 'switch on' period.

 

As a direct result, Zylpha is now the leading independent provider of connectivity solutions to the Portal and at the time of writing has nine organisations using it's Rapid RTA solution. Zylpha's users have now processed many hundreds of claims through the Portal and Paul Hinchliffe, Practice Manager and co-founder at Bott & Co commented;  

New Quadrant Partners LLP (New Quadrant), a newly formed private client boutique based in London, has gone live just two months after ordering a new case and practice management system from TikitTFB. The firm, led by Louise Stoten, formerly of Payne Hicks Beach – will employ Partner for Windows to help manage business processes, drive growth and support the delivery of services in tax and trust advice, wealth structuring, succession planning, trust management, and family office consulting and administration.

 

The project was managed for New Quadrant by Pragmatise Limited, an independent IT consultancy which has been involved in IT projects for organisations such as Ernst & Young, and most recently establishing all IT-related services, including the successful implementation of Partner for Windows, for Maurice Turnor Gardner LLP, the private client de-merger of top five law firm Allen & Overy.

 

Joan Major, CEO of New Quadrant comments, ‘As a new start-up it is extremely important that we choose reliable systems that will assist us in developing our position in the market by giving clear visibility of our performance across all areas of the business. Partner for Windows offers us functionality and flexibility allowing us to develop a solution in line with our requirements and one that will adapt with us as the firm grows.

 

‘TikitTFB have demonstrated that they are a willing partner to help us get the system where it needs to be now and in the future, and we look forward to working with them to achieve this’.

 

New Quadrant Partners LLP have also chosen sister company TikitNIS to handle their infrastructure and hardware requirements, meaning both hardware and software will be looked after by the Tikit Group.

Walsall based firm Enoch Evans selected Pilgrim LawSoft as their next generation Practice & Case Management system in February 2010. The project began in earnest in March and the firm went live in June, having successfully migrated from their legacy Miles33 and SolCase systems in tandem.

 

Pilgrim and Enoch Evans project personnel worked in unison to ensure data conversion, consultancy and training were all completed in line with the projected go live date. The firm was able to take advantage of the comprehensive case management applications supplied by Pilgrim allowing the project team to focus on ensuring the overall system reflected the firm’s working practices. Implementation training and familiarisation support was given to all users within the firm.

 

The firm’s Managing Partner David Evans said, “The firm was committed to achieving a short turnaround period for the project. My team worked diligently alongside Pilgrim to ensure a smooth transition from systems that had been in use for over twenty years. I and the rest of the partnership are happy with how the project went and the firm is now starting to enjoy the benefits of using the sophisticated tools LawSoft provides, all supported by a single database.”

 

Colin Kennedy Pilgrim’s COO said, “David and his team were excellent to work with. Any firm embarking on a new system implementation would benefit from taking a leaf out of Enoch Evans’ book. Common sense, quick decision making and a ‘can do’ attitude were the key ingredients for this exemplary project.”

TikitTFB in partnership with Workshare, are pleased to announce Document Compare Live – a new Software as a Service for Document Comparison based on Workshare Compare Server technology. The service will be initially available to Partner for Windows users’ towards the end of July 2010. Document Compare Live is designed to deliver a more cost-effective and accessible document comparison service, allowing firms of any size to benefit from Workshare’s powerful comparison capabilities.

 

Currently, client firms can only take advantage of Workshare’s Document Comparison by implementing server-based or per user solutions. Document Compare Live will enable all 600 of TikitTFB’s clients in the UK, to quickly and easily compare Microsoft Word or PDF documents anytime and anywhere.

 

TikitTFB will be leading the development of the project. The initial release will provide a comparison interface linked from their existing Client Portal to a hosted version of Workshare Compare Server, based at their secure data centre in Fareham. Using their existing usernames and passwords, users will be able to fully utilise the service online without having to install any software on their servers or user desktops. Each client firm will have an account automatically set up with enough credits to run five free comparisons so they can evaluate the service. Subsequent usage will be charged on a per comparison basis and will be invoiced monthly in arrears. The subsequent release will see the service integrated within Partner for Windows, allowing clients to launch Document Compare Live directly from the caseflow they are working on, run the comparison and file the results back into the caseflow.

 

Adrian Jones, Product and Development Director at TikitTFB comments, ‘This project marks an exciting period for TikitTFB; we are making technology, that has to date been unattainable to some users, attainable, by eliminating barriers such as cost or insufficient resources to host software, via the SaaS platform. Our entire client base will be able to take advantage of this service without the need to deploy any software or upfront cost. We believe this service has great potential and could shape the way in which we, as a solution provider, deliver our solutions and services in the future.’

 

Frank Boening, VP EMEA at Workshare believes Compare is a perfect service for the cloud. ‘Many lawyers need Comparison but not all of them all the time. Document Compare Live, with its pay as you go model, puts the control and decision making back to the lawyers. It frees up IT from managing a desktop application but still ensures the same comparison technology used by a magic circle firm is available for a one off comparison at a very reasonable cost.’

Worcestershire and Gloucestershire based Thomson & Bancks LLP are to be the first firm to implement a hosted version of Partner for Windows, after choosing TikitTFB as their preferred supplier to replace their ageing IRIS FoxPro system. They follow May’s announcement of Marchants Solicitors who also chose to switch in favour of Partner for Windows.

 

The firm, who have been in operation for over 170 years, will be deploying Partner for Windows to merge the two separate FoxPro systems they are currently running at each of their offices, providing the firm with a single, consolidated solution. They have chosen to run the 58 user system remotely via a hosted solution to be provided by ACM IT Solutions. The hosting solution is due to go live in early August with the entire Partner for Windows project to be completed by October.

 

The introduction of a hosted Partner for Windows system will enable the firm to bring together disparate parts of the business, centralising and reducing duplication of work and providing a streamlined approach to the firm’s case management processes in the areas of Business Law, Family, Private Client, Litigation and Property.

 

David Roberts, Project Leader at the firm comments, ‘We reviewed other suppliers who offer a complete hosted solution but the depth of functionality that Partner for Windows could offer us overall far outweighed those options. Coupled with the solution being hosted by ACM, we have a powerful business tool that will allow our staff to work anywhere, anytime and will provide us with significant savings across the firm.’

 

‘We have so far been impressed with TikitTFB’s approach to our project, openly willing to work with our chosen hosted supplier to provide us with a solution bespoke to our needs.’

FTI Consulting, Inc today announced that its FTI Technology business segment has launched the enhanced Ringtail Analytics module for the market-leading Ringtail e-discovery platform.

The updated offering includes the popular clustering and visual review capabilities of Document Mapper as well as two components, Smart Decision and Concept Mapper, designed to assist in early case assessments (ECA), keyword testing and the faster creation of review assignments. In total, the expanded Ringtail Analytics module provides powerful data analytics and visual review tools that together dramatically increase the productivity and efficiency of legal review.

“Ringtail Analytics has produced tangible productivity gains for our review teams and we expect it will provide substantial cost savings to our clients moving forward,” said Danny Chan, eDiscovery/litigation support project manager of Bereskin & Parr LLP. “As data volumes grow, linear review technology becomes inefficient. Fortunately, Ringtail Analytics lets us smartly cut through the data, understand key concepts and review relevant documents faster and more effectively.”  

Ringtail Analytics is comprised of three complementary components:

•    Smart Decision: Smart Decision helps clients rapidly test and sample keywords across millions of documents while also providing advanced whole-case reporting and familiar pivot table capabilities to track project status and review metrics.
•    Concept Mapper: Concept Mapper organizes large-scale document collections by key concepts and concept frequency into a simple and easy-to-use dashboard. Using Concept Mapper, legal teams can quickly build assignments based on specific themes then route to the Ringtail review workflow which ensures that the most important documents will be reviewed first.
•    Document Mapper: The Document Mapper review interface is an integrated component of the Ringtail Analytics module and can be used at any stage of the e-discovery or review process, including for early case assessments, investigations, preparing for depositions or for quality control of reviewed documents.

“In a recent study, 39 percent of Fortune 1000 inside counsel respondents said they are using visualization and clustering tools to speed the review process,” said Ed Pfromer, senior managing director, FTI Technology. “This number is likely to grow as legal teams realize that linear review is no longer an adequate solution for e-discovery volumes and court-defined deadlines. We were an early innovator in visualization and clustering for e-discovery, and with this enhanced release, Ringtail Analytics further refines the user experience and greatly expands the reach of these critical technologies to encompass larger data sets and more use cases than ever before.”

Through its comprehensive portfolio of e-discovery software, services and consulting, FTI Technology is transforming the way corporations and their law firms globally manage e-discovery for legal and regulatory events. Through offerings such as FTI Acuity, FTI Technology’s e-discovery services and consulting help streamline the entire e-discovery process and can provide clients a single point of e-discovery accountability. The comprehensive portfolio of FTI Technology software, including Attenex and Ringtail, delivers advanced technology for the most mission-critical and costly steps of e-discovery. FTI Technology’s e-discovery software can be deployed either on-premise or on-demand as a hosted solution, a hybrid capability that helps clients scale to the unique demands of each legal matter without sacrificing a consistent and cost-effective e-discovery process. Altogether, FTI Technology provides a smart and comprehensive approach to improve the e-discovery process, contain costs without cutting corners, and manage client’s critical enterprise information demands.

BigHand has today announced its plan for the convergence of the BigHand and nFlow technologies. A new converged product; BigHand v4, will be launched on Nov 4^th 2010 at the BigHand Annual User Conference and will combine the best features of both technologies in a new BigHand product. BigHand v4 will enable all customers within the BigHand Group to access an unrivalled voice productivity toolkit and will enhance their document production and mobile efficiency even further.

 

Rob Lancashire, BigHand Managing Director for UK Legal & Professional Services commented:

 

“Since the acquisition of nFlow I have spoken with customers about the best way forward and there has been overwhelming support for the convergence of the product streams as it offers both nFlow & BigHand customers the best of both worlds. Equally we acknowledge a customer desire for flexibility and a caveat to the convergence plan is that we intend to allow firms to do this at their own speed and not be forced to upgrade by any set deadline. I believe the plan we have in place delivers BigHand and nFlow end-users a combination of product improvements and technical consistency, and is a result of engaging quickly and directly with the customer base post-acquisition. We will continue to evolve the plan to ensure a seamless migration path to the converged version, and an upgrade that delivers significant value.”

 

Asif Ali, BigHand Head of Products, commented:

 

“The BigHand Group is committed to the long term support of users on current versions 4 and 5 of the nFlow system, including the nFlow mobility apps, and there are no plans to discontinue either product. As testament to our support, BigHand’s Analytics package comprising a suite of Crystal reports will be integrated with nFlow software, and be made available this summer. However, following the next service release for nFlow v5, nFlow development resource will then be concentrated on the converged product which will effectively become the next major release for the nFlow product stream. This will also mean that a number of the innovative nFlow functions will be available to BigHand users as part of their upgrade to BigHand v4.’’

 

BigHand will honour all existing nFlow Annual Maintenance and Support contracts for all firms including those wanting to migrate to BigHand v3.4 or future v4 products. Furthermore, the migration will replicate the existing nFlow configuration as closely as possible making the process simple and straightforward, but give access to significantly enhanced mobility, workflow and voice-to-text functionality including:

 

·         BigHand for BlackBerry® v4

·         BigHand for iPhone™

·         BigHand Integration with Microsoft® Office

·         Email Notification + Document Return

·         Advanced Reporting + Analytics

·         Server-based Speech Recognition

Existing BigHand v3 users will be able to seamlessly upgrade to BigHand v4 as per their standard process to date and with little or no change to their existing infrastructure or system set-up.

 

More information is available at a series of breakfast briefings being held at the following locations:

 

Weds 23rd June            8am-10am         Liverpool

Thurs 24th June 8am-10am         Leeds

Fri 25th June                 8am-10am         Newcastle

Thurs 1st July                8am-10am         Edinburgh

Tikit is delighted to announce the signing of a three year contract with Fox Williams LLP to outsource all IT Support and Service functions.

Under this agreement, Tikit will provide Fox Williams with a fully Managed Service Support Desk, technical 3rd line infrastructure support, ‘Out of Hours’ user support, IT training and IT directorial consultancy.  This service commenced on Monday 14th June.

Jeremy Gubbay, Chief Operating Officer at Fox Williams said “We have been impressed by the way that Tikit have supported us over the last year, and we are looking forward to benefiting from the expertise of a large IT-led organisation.  Tikit are a company with many resources that we can take advantage of, while their benchmarking process will ensure that our IT organisation and standards are comparable with, or exceed those of our competitors.  A prime example of this is the provision of ‘Out of Hours’ cover and continuous back fill, which requires a level of resource that we currently do not have available”.

Derek Kindercliff-Jones, Head of Managed Services at Tikit, explained “Fox Williams is a dynamic, forward-looking City law firm, and we are proud to be working so closely with them to provide a complete, scaleable and dependable IT service.  We have been working with Fox Williams since June 2009, providing infrastructure advice and support to their onsite IT team.  We have all worked together to develop a sound working relationship, and it's great to have the opportunity to extend this partnership into the complete outsourcing package.  Our experience in legal support services, and the resources we have available, make Tikit ideally suited to provide complete contractual services of this nature.  We look forward to providing Fox Williams not just with a first-class day-to-day service and IT management, but with long-term strategic and implementation services to support their growth”.

David Lumsden, Tikit CEO, commented “We are very pleased that Fox Williams has selected Tikit as its partner to deliver IT services.  Our knowledge of law firms, legal applications and the infrastructure that supports them is second to none, and it is this knowledge and experience which we are placing at the disposal of Fox Williams to ensure they have the cost-effective and professional IT services they need, as the firm continues to grow".

HotDocs Limited (formerly Capsoft UK) today announced the release of the HotDocs 10 suite.

The company acquired worldwide rights to the award winning document automation and assembly software in November 2009 after purchasing the HotDocs business from LexisNexis.

Russell Shepherd, Managing Director of HotDocs Limited, said “The release of HotDocs 10 marks the first in a series of announcements which will create significant changes in the document assembly market.”

This latest version of the software has been specifically developed to support the upcoming release of Microsoft Office 2010 and, in addition, will be Microsoft Silverlight enabled.

The most noteworthy changes to the suite involve HotDocs Server 10, the company’s innovative technology for deploying HotDocs document templates via the internet.

Many of HotDocs’ global customers utilise the software to generate simple or more complex documents, such as legal contracts and sophisticated loan agreements which can run to hundreds of pages with literally thousands of variables.

With the launch of HotDocs 10, the development team have integrated with Silverlight to offer customers a vastly improved product.

“The Silverlight integration is a giant step forward for three reasons,” explained Lowell Stewart, Director of Software Development for HotDocs.  “Firstly, interviews for server-based HotDocs templates can now be accessed using Internet Explorer or Firefox on Windows and Safari or Firefox for Mac OS. In the past, server interviews were limited to Internet Explorer.”

He continued: “Secondly, the new interviews have an updated look and feel – a fact which users should notice immediately.  Finally, and this one is the real game changer, new interviews will run ten to twenty times faster than JavaScript based interviews.”

Stewart’s enthusiasm for the HotDocs Server upgrade is echoed by Leonard DuCharme, US VP of Marketing at HotDocs, who said:  “The JavaScript based interviews were functional, but slow.  Silverlight dramatically accelerates the interview process, which improves productivity and ultimately saves money for the client.”

Shepherd continued:  “Since the takeover, our assessment of the overall market potential has been extremely positive – we’re of the opinion that the business has a much greater reach and potential than our original estimate.”

“Long established as the market leader in the legal market, HotDocs has also made substantial inroads into wholesale penetration of the US corporate marketplace.  We fully expect the adoption rate of HotDocs to vastly accelerate now that the business is in independent hands and is fully focussed on creating the very best document automation software company in the world.”

He concluded:  “Further developments from HotDocs will be announced over the coming months which will change the document assembly landscape still further-  this is just the beginning”.