FloSuite Ltd have announced that Maclay Murray & Spens LLP as its latest legal sector client in the UK.

Maclay Murray & Spens is a top 50 UK law firm with around 600 staff, offices in Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and Brussels, and a turnover approaching £50m (2006).

The firm selected FloSuite to meet requirements for the automation and streamlining of key internal procedures across the business, including Client/Matter Inception, Billing and others. The FloSuite applications will integrate closely with Maclay Murray & Spens’ Pilgrim practice management and Interwoven document management systems.

McGrigors, a top 50 UK law firm, initially went to the marketplace looking to purchase a legal case management or BPM framework which would enable streamlining of plot sales work within the Real Estate department. Further to a comprehensive evaluation of available products, McGrigors selected FloSuite for this purpose.

McGrigors has more than 650 staff and offices in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Belfast the Falkland Islands and Azerbaijan.

However, McGrigors soon realised that FloSuite could provide substantial benefits for system/data integration and a range of additional business processes across the firm – including Client/Matter Inception, and decided to move forward with a site-wide purchase.

Mike McGlinchey, Head of IT, McGrigors said: “With FloSuite we will be able to build sophisticated applications in a way not previously possible. The Microsoft Visio-based design environment enables fast prototyping and evolution of solutions to take place collaboratively with involvement of the business, rather than the traditional detailed specification and delivery phases associated with normal programming techniques.

“The fact that FloSuite also includes the options of deployment via Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint and Office was also important for us as this will enable applications to be deployed within working environments familiar to the user-base.”

Russell Wood, Director of Sales, FloSuite, said: “We believe project wins such as this validate the approach we have taken towards the legal market. We are enjoying significant success in this marketplace because we can provide a single, rapid development environment that enables law firms to deploy both data-centric and process-centric solutions quickly and easily in order to meet business demands.”

Minter Ellison SANT part of the largest full service law firm in the Asia Pacific region supporting leading industries and government clients, have scrutinised the new Axxia DNA practice management solution by carrying out a full evaluation during a 2 week technical review lab.

The purpose of this was to measure the suitability of DNA as the core technical application to
underpin the firm’s business strategy and customer service offerings for the future.

DNA is the result of intensive research and development by Axxia, who welcomed the opportunity
for the independent technical review carried out by Minter Ellison.

Stuart Holden, Axxia Managing Director commented “We have always been confident that DNA will provide firms with a completepractice solution with the business process engine allowing for continual development and the ability to engineer bespoke processes and applications. To have the opportunity for an end user to fully review and scrutinise the system in this way has been invaluable, not only has it provided the reassurance to Minter Ellison that DNA is the solution to deliver to their requirements but it
also sends a message to the market that DNA is a fully functional and technically sound product
that should be a consideration for all firms that want to gain the most return from core applications
such as practice management.”

Ian Thomson, Minter Ellison Director of Innovation and previously a Partner at Morton Fraser
discussed the motivation for the technical lab; “It is key to the firm’s client strategy to be
responsive and to consistently seek to develop ways to improve the efficiency and standard of
service we offer to our clients. Clients have a concern that they are not currently handling work as
efficiently and effectively as possible, combined with the need for improved risk mitigation, they
have looked to the Minter Ellison to offer a best practice approach and solution. There were 2 key
reasons for us to initially consider DNA as the application to assist us with this, firstly the system
is web based and secondly this is the only business process management system with a legal
practice management system contained within it. As an example clients have previously looked to
us to provide information and guidance on the correct precedents to use and how they should be
using them, in the past we have struggled to do this effectively, now we are able to collaborate
with the client, not only providing access to the necessary documentation but providing further
information on how the client should be using the precedents whilst ensuring they have mitigated
any potential risks.”

“DNA will allow us to offer a collaborative communication service, successfully delivering an
improved service to clients whilst being cost effective and differentiating the firm from its
competitors. Added to this we will also benefit from rolling out DNA internally, profiting from a
unified system with the added advantages the underlying business process engine will deliver
such as consistent standards, production efficiencies, cost reduction, enhanced risk management
and performance monitoring.”

The two week technical lab has been a clear win for both Axxia and Minter Ellison who are now
looking to implement DNA over the coming year, so much so they have already started to change
the way the firm builds processes and applications with the anticipation for plugging in DNA in
due course.