Birmingham-based Blakemores Solicitors have swapped out their IRIS practice management system in favour of TFB’s Partner for Windows, to help streamline their accounts and internal reporting processes. In addition, the firm is anticipating significant efficiency gains for the processing of their LSC family and immigration work thanks to the comprehensive legal aid functionality of Partner for Windows.

 

Blakemores, who were previously using IRIS AlphaLaw for accounts, will be rolling out a 180-user Partner for Windows practice management system across the firm whilst implementing case management within their family, probate and immigration departments. They have also chosen to implement Partner TaskCentre, a business process management tool, which will allow them to provide timely and specific management information to key personnel.

 

Robert Palmer, IT Manager at Blakemores comments, ‘When we decided to replace our IRIS AlphaLaw Accounts System, we were looking for a flexible, intuitive and easy to use system. Partner for Windows meets all these requirements and more. From a user perspective, our cashiers particularly favoured it because of the comprehensive in-built LSC functionality and our Head of Finance, Kerry Sherrad, liked its flexible management reporting. From an IT perspective, its ability to work seamlessly within our existing infrastructure and integrate with other leading technologies means the system can grow with the firm and help us embrace new ways of working such as the growing market of online services.’

 

‘We were all so impressed with its all round capabilities that we decided to take a look at TFB’s case management system for the firms main LSC users. It made sense as its integration with the accounts system was seamless and our Partners were so impressed by the functionality that the decision to implement TFB case management was an automatic one’.

 

Richard Higgs, Sales Director at TFB comments, ‘Blakemores is an ambitious, forward-thinking practice with a strong reputation in the Midlands and we are delighted to have been selected to support their key business functions with Partner for Windows.”

Mercers, a long established and leading Thames Valley firm of solicitors and established LawNet member firm, has selected Linetime to replace their existing AIM Evolution system after a comprehensive evaluation process.

Linetime will be supplying Liberate Practice Management and Case Management software to all users in the firm.

Mercers' commitment to offering a quality service, as evidenced by attaining ISO9001, has been a key factor in its continued success.  Accordingly the firm sees investing in the latest information technology as a means of ensuring that the needs and expectations of its clients continue to be met and even exceeded.

Mercers' success has in part been based on recommendations and the firm adopted the same approach in selecting Linetime as its software supplier.

BigHand has today announced that Top-25 commercial law firm Hammonds LLP has improved its fee earner to secretary ratios from 3:1 to 4:1, and the BigHand digital dictation workflow technology has assisted the firm in achieving this objective. BigHand voice software has replaced outdated analogue tape dictation equipment for 700 users. The Hammonds team introduced new working practices whilst rolling out the system to improve efficiencies.

Issy Freeman, HR Manager at Hammonds commented:
‘’BigHand has been rolled out as a business task management system. We replaced our analogue tapes with the BigHand system, at the same time we took the opportunity to review and improve firm wide working practices. This has enabled us to improve the service we provide to clients, it has allowed our workforce to become more flexible, and improved document turnaround times. Overall the system has been received extremely positively by fee-earners and secretaries alike.

Hammonds has taken the opportunity to ensure that the right people are doing the right work, and that the correct secretarial structure is in place to support the fee earners. Since implementing BigHand we have improved our fee earner to secretary ratio from 3:1 to 4:1. Additionally we have developed a Secretarial Career Path for our secretarial workforce. Hammonds has high expectations of its secretaries and we encourage a mentality of wanting to make a difference and go the extra mile. The feedback from secretaries since we implemented BigHand has been extremely positive and they have felt it has enabled them to add more value than they were able to previously. We encourage our secretaries to take ownership and make the system work effectively. As a result turnaround times are much faster and we also have a great teamwork ethos not only within departments, but across locations as well. BigHand has given our secretaries greater autonomy and the above demonstrates that they are now able to support each other in a way that was simply not possible using tapes.’’

BigHand is now used at all Hammonds UK offices plus the firm’s Brussels office. In addition to the desktop software fee earners are able to submit dictation or delegate tasks via their BlackBerry, and then track progress also from their smartphone. BigHand software is now set to be rolled out to Hammonds offices in Spain, France and Germany. More...