Niche technologies

 

How a little extra can bring new levels of efficiency

The use of technology in law firms and other legal organisations has been revolutionary. For fee earners, partners, cashiers, and IT specialists – the introduction of certain software has been a game changer, enabling firms to grow at a faster rate than ever before.

Most good law firms today will have a case or practice management solution in place for staff to use the many time-saving features to increase their efficiencies, take on new business, and generate more revenue for the business.

But aside from programmes used to manage case files and the finances of a firm, what are other technologies that can be used to enhance efficiency? Once you have your Proclaim environment set up, what else can you do?

Smaller technologies with a very specific benefit

We’re a huge advocate of more niche technologies. Smaller pieces of software that do a very specific job. They’re not necessarily going to appeal to everyone, only those who have a very particular task that needs completing.

One such item of software is Arken Professional, which now integrates seamlessly with Proclaim. Arken Professional is an online will creator that walks fee earners through the process of drafting a will for their client, in the quickest, but most effective way possible.

Wills are a small but quickly growing section of the legal sector in the UK. Only fee earners who choose to offer this as a service have anything to do with wills on a day-to-day basis, and Arken is designed with these very people in mind.

Great benefits at a small cost

The great thing about niche technologies is they offer a solution to a very unique problem, but can be quite small in nature and so are relatively inexpensive. Arken, for example, is available as an add-on to

Proclaim – and so doesn’t cost anything close to a stand-alone wills solution.

But the benefits can be huge. These technologies cater to the very specific needs of fee earners in this field, and provide solutions to their challenges. In general, they can make things even more efficient – in ways a general case management software solution is limited to due to its broad scope of requirements.

Existing efficiencies are enhanced further when other niche technologies such as Arken Professional can ‘plug-in’ to your main solution creating a new level of maximum efficiency for your law firm.

Niche technologies aren’t limited to will creation. There are all sorts of different things, suitable for different types of tasks. But the integration with Arken Professional is our latest innovation that we’re particularly excited about here at Eclipse, as it provides a very obvious and fast benefit to our clients.

You can read more about our integration with Arken Professional by clicking here.

Efficiency boost for private client sector as Proclaim integrates with Arken.legal (UK) Ltd

Eclipse Legal Systems, a Law Society partner, has announced integration with Arken.legal’s intuitive, comprehensive document generation solution – Arken Professional.

The integration enables a seamless connection between Proclaim, the Case Management Solution from Eclipse, and Arken Professional – eliminating the need to re-key any data. Information is transferred between the two systems immediately, significantly reducing drafting time, creating greater consistency across documents. Once completed in Arken Professional, the Will and associated documentation (including Lasting Powers of Attorney, General Powers of Attorney, Advance Decisions and Expression of Wishes) are automatically stored into the relevant case history within Proclaim.

The easy-to-use Proclaim interface and secure connection with Arken Professional enables greater fee earner productivity, resulting in faster turnaround and reduced risk across practices.

Award-winning Arken.legal has been leading the way in technology with innovative software for the estate planning industry since 1992. Built by lawyers and developed by technology experts, over 6 million Wills have been drafted using its pioneering software.

Mick Thompson, Technical Director of Eclipse, comments:

“The ability for fee earners to pass client information quickly and securely into Arken.legal’s Will writing software without having to re-key data for a second time will be a huge time saver for law firms. This swift, efficient service is bound to delight clients of law firms using this integration – helping to differentiate from the competition further.”

Dave Newick, Managing Director of Arken.legal, comments:

“This integration is a game changer for anyone in the private client sector who is looking for ways to increase profitability through finding efficiencies. Rebuilding business after COVID-19 is a strong focus for our users right now. Our API integrations allow the busy professional to eliminate the time sink that is re-keying data – letting them focus on crucial areas such as building revenues and client retention. Our partnership with Eclipse – another industry leader – has come at an important time. Lockdown forced professionals to embrace digitisation like never before – from the remote running of their business to delivering services and liaising with clients and colleagues. Many people are entering into their new normal with a stronger trust and appreciation of technology, which we plan to strongly support in our march towards future-proofing the sector. We’re excited to see the immediate benefits this will have for our users.”

Incredible insights with Proclaim BI – Know Your Data

Jack works for a relatively large law firm in Manchester. As a Team Leader, it’s his job to ensure each fee earner in the conveyancing department is working productively, in order to guarantee a high level of efficiency within his team.

It’s important that Jack is always able to see exactly how much work each member of his team has been assigned at any time. Where there are gaps in an individual’s schedule, he can allocate new business that firm has agreed to take on.

As the legal world is quite fast-moving, this can be difficult. But Jack uses Proclaim, and benefits from Proclaim BI – the new business intelligence dashboard that provides vast amounts of insight into key business information including fee earner productivity and the case work they have been doing.

This gives Jack an overview of how the team is performing in terms of efficiency. But in addition to that, it provides key insights into potential issues that could be preventing the team from maximising revenue.

For example, one of Jack’s team – Gary – has taken on lots of different conveyancing cases in the last month, but he hasn’t billed as much as you might expect. Jack looked into the data, and saw that most of these cases hadn’t actually progressed past the searches stage.

This identified a big problem for the team – its search provider was too slow and acting as a bottleneck for conveyancing cases. Jack decided to implement a new search provider, cases were able to move along much quicker, and the number of billings increased.

All because Jack was able to establish what the problem was through knowing his data.

Sophie is a fee earner who works in Jack’s team at a Manchester law firm. She works on conveyancing cases for a variety of different clients, helping people purchase or sell a property. Sophie, as well as the other fee earners, have a target for the number of billings they need to complete every month.

The end of the month is fast approaching, and Sophie is still a little way behind her target. Not too far, but she needs to work hard over the next week or so to get a couple of cases over the line and ensure her goals are met.

One thing she can do is utilise Proclaim BI to analyse the data behind her cases, and the work she has done so far this month.

Sophie does this, and specifically drills down into the details to see which cases of hers are closest to being completed, and which don’t really have a chance of closing before the end of the month. By knowing her data, Sophie knows which cases to prioritise.

She can also see the potential value of each case, and again is able to prioritise those that will help her achieve her targets for that month. Without this information, it would prove much more difficult to generate maximum revenue for her firm.

The importance of analysing data in a law firm

Three ways to avoid being left behind

A law firm isn’t necessarily the type of organisation you would expect needs to focus so much on data and analytics. They take on cases for individuals and businesses, try to reach the best conclusion possible for their clients, and then move on to the next case.

But the underlying statistics create a clear picture of how the entire operation is running, and a thorough analysis can enable firms to improve efficiencies and performance. Taking the time to look at the data, including information on cases, fee earners and accounts, is well worthwhile.

This is what the best law firms are doing today. If you’re not – then you’re being left behind.

Analysing case data

If you want to maximise your output, in terms of completed cases, then it’s important to ensure you’re working near to full capacity as much as possible. Keep your fee earners busy and as soon as a space opens up in their workload, ensure it gets filled with more billable hours.

To do this, you should constantly be reviewing data on how many cases are currently open, which cases have recently closed, and what capacity your fee earners are currently working at. This way you always know where there are gaps that can be filled with new business.

Analysing employee performance

The type of data mentioned above is also incredibly useful when looking at the performance of your fee earners. For example, if they have targets for the number of cases they need to complete in any given time frame, this information will show who is on track, and who isn’t.

Good analytics software will also enable users to breakdown not just the number of cases each fee earner is currently working on, but the value of those cases, so you can easily see which individuals are generating the most revenue for your firm – and which could be doing better.

Analysing financial data

Speaking of revenue, the ability to really drill down into financial analytics is incredibly important from a business perspective. The ability to see the value of each case can provide amazing insights into what sort of clients you should be looking to take on, in order to maximise revenues.

Of course, looking into financial data is already done by law firms – accounting staff need to know what money is coming in and where money is going out. But to specifically attribute those figures to particular clients allows you to see which clients are especially profitable for the firm, and seeing which fee earners are bringing in the most money is useful information to have.

Proclaim BI

With Proclaim BI law firms can easily analyse business efficiency and avoid being left behind by the competition.

Proclaim BI is the new dashboard designed to help law firms know their data and enable them to make more informed business decisions, allowing users to clearly visualise their key business information and access data insight and graphical analysis in real time.

Legal Protection Group selects Proclaim Case Management solution from Eclipse

Bristol-based Legal Protection Group is implementing the Proclaim Case Management solution from Eclipse, the market-leading legal software provider.

The group, led by several industry experts, specialises in legal protection insurance for various areas of law.

Following an in-depth search for a case management solution that could be easily configured to meet specific requirements, Legal Protection Group determined a claims specific version of Proclaim was the standout choice of software. Proclaim will enable employees firm-wide to deliver a consistent approach at each stage of the claims process.

In addition, Legal Protection Group will be implementing TouchPoint+, the client self-service portal from Eclipse. Accessible via smartphones, iPads, tablets or laptops, TouchPoint+ includes Secure online document delivery and signing along with online case tracking and live updates. This will allow the business to process claims more efficiently whilst continuing to provide great client care.

Clare Wright, Operations Manager at Legal Protection Group, comments:

“Proclaim is undoubtedly going to improve efficiencies across our organisation, enabling us to deliver a faster and consistent higher level of service to clients, creating a great platform for the business to grow.

“The addition of TouchPoint+ is a milestone moment in our journey to continually enhance the level of service we offer to our clients – increasing our edge over competitors even further. Overall, we’re delighted to be embracing the power of Proclaim and the benefits it will bring to us and our clients.”

Start-up selects Proclaim Practice Management solution from Eclipse

Start-up law firm Exclusive Law is implementing the Proclaim Practice Management solution from Eclipse, the Law Society Endorsed legal software provider.

Founded in early 2020, the Manchester-based practice specialises in personal injury cases and boasts fee earners with a wealth of previous experience in delivering an exceptional service to clients in this specialist field.

The firm looked to hit the ground running upon beginning its operations, and sought to implement a fully integrated practice management solution that would ensure maximum efficiencies across the firm whilst enabling the provision of a high-quality of service to clients from day one.

After an in-depth review Exclusive Law selected Proclaim, the inbuilt personal injury workflows and inherent scalability will prove to be a key asset to the business for years to come. The accounting toolset integrated within Proclaim will enable streamlined processes throughout the entire practice.

In addition, Exclusive Law decided to implement TouchPoint+, the device independent self-service portal from Eclipse that allows firms to better connect with their clients. TouchPoint+ displays live information on a particular case in an interactive format, enabling clients to be updated at their own convenience.

Andrew Doyle, Director at Exclusive Law, comments:

“Proclaim is just what we need to help us get up and running. Implementing a solution quickly which will create efficiencies from the start, rather than waiting and transferring to suitable software at a later date, will prove to be a massive time-saver.

“We’re looking forward to the benefits that having a single system firm-wide brings such as a consistent approach to services and a central store of client documentation. With TouchPoint+, it will be even easier for our clients to receive an excellent service – viewing and signing key documents electronically can all be done from the convenience of home without the need to visit our office.”

Enhanced flexibility with Proclaim Go – work anywhere

Jane is a solicitor who works at a law firm in Birmingham. Today, she’s out of the office visiting a client in the centre of London. This used to mean that Jane would have to print key case information in advance or take along a laptop to access Proclaim – not ideal when traveling on several trains.

Thankfully Jane can utilise Proclaim Go – a mobile and tablet friendly application powered by Proclaim, designed especially for fee earners like her, who are often travelling or in client meetings with a need to access accurate live information on their cases and the ability to record events and update information on their cases, on the go.

On the way to the client, Jane gets up to speed with her client’s details through her smartphone – she simply presses the Proclaim Go shortcut icon and uses the favourite cases function to easily find her client’s case history – which includes documents and previous correspondence.

Mid-way through the meeting, which is going well, Jane and her client decide to take a break. Jane steps outside and receives a call on her phone from a different client, asking for some information on his case.

Normally, Jane would have to make a note of her client’s request and get back to them the following day when back in the office with access to Proclaim – if she remembered and the note wasn’t lost.

However, with Proclaim Go, Jane can provide excellent client care instantly all through her smartphone. Jane searches for her client’s case by name and retrieves the requested information for her client all whilst he’s on the phone. Once the call has ended, Jane records the time she spent on the call and the details discussed directly into the case history using Proclaim Go. If in a suitable location, Jane could even use her smartphone’s existing digital dictation functionality to record case notes with Proclaim Go.

Jane returns to her meeting knowing that everything is up to date. After the meeting, on the train journey home, Jane records her time and enters a memo updating the case history with the outcomes of the meeting. After updating the case, Jane sets herself follow up tasks to ensure nothing is missed for her client in the future and views her scheduled tasks for the next day – all on Proclaim Go using her smartphone.