Law firms are rapidly realising that if they don't latch onto the
benefits IT can deliver, they will lose out to rivals with an
online presence. Lindsay Nicolle reports on one firm whose legal
staff are not afraid to get their hands dirty in development work
What is the difference between Jurassic Park and the legal
profession? One is populated by dinosaurs and the other is a film
by Steven Spielberg. A cruel joke but it works because it is
accurate.
There are only a handful of legal firms in the UK flying the
technology flag. The rest believe they are state-of-the-art if they
have word processing and e-mail or are clinging to yesterday's
office practices in nostalgic memory of the days when paper and
quill were regarded as evidence of intelligence and power.
But of the few legal firms adopting IT today, a handful stand out
as pioneers capable of changing the face of the justice system for
the better, even though some much-loved and ingrained traditions
may be lost along the way.
One such firm is Scottish Goliath, Morton Fraser. It uses
cutting-edge technology to deliver services to commercial and
private clients such as Scottish & Newcastle, the UK Atomic
Energy Authority, the Ministry of Defence, Powergen, Somerfield and
Customs & Excise. It also has global links through its
membership of Interlaw. Morton Fraser's main areas of expertise are
corporate, asset and debtor finance, commercial property, lender
services, litigation, IT intellectual property, employment,
commodity legal services, licensing, family law, private client and
residential property.
Based in large, modern, open-plan premises in the heart of
Edinburgh, Morton Fraser has 20 partners, two consultants, six
associates and a total staff of around 175. In the Legal 500 list
for last year, Morton Fraser ranked as the fifth largest law firm
in Scotland.
Unusually for a legal firm, Morton Fraser boasts a broad team of IT
staff. Its information services manager doubles as an IT manager
for the practice, aided by a database administrator who maintains
the business' data structures. The company's main Informix database
runs on a SCO Unix platform and holds traditional practice
management records, such as time recordings and client billings, as
well as case management files and customer relationship management
(CRM) records.
The practice's core case management software is supplied by Axxia
Systems and accessed through Windows 95, 98, NT and 2000 PCs,
though the practice is considering Citrix Metaframe thin client
machines, which rely on server-based applications, for the future
to provide flexible working from home or clients' premises, and to
cut the cost of desktop ownership.
Two network administrators support the main Novell Netware
networked servers and the Novell Groupwise e-mail software, and
also conduct IT training for all staff. Last but not least, Morton
Fraser employs two full-time Web designers who also assist in
general IT support and new hardware and software installations.
This IT team is impressive enough without throwing in Morton
Fraser's IT ace card: about 12 of the practice's qualified staff
are hybrid IT people. The legal eagles are capable of designing
aspects of Morton Fraser's case management system thanks to its
easy-to-use graphical user interface.
"My argument for doing this is that we have very good people here
and they have much to offer in the setting up and administration of
the software we use," says Ian Thomson, one of the partners at
Morton Fraser who was involved in the introduction of IT to the
practice in 1996. "When it comes to designing or maintaining
processes for electronic files to run that have a knowledge
management aspect to them, putting in links to legal precedents or
whatever, that's best done by qualified staff because it's their
expertise and experiences that we're trying to capture."
Far and away the IT star in Morton Fraser's technology arsenal is
its combined case and matter management, CRM and reporting
software. It maintains and links all the records of each client in
every respect, so the relationship history, current caseload,
financial records, time recordings for billings, and, where the
Data Protection Act allows, the personal interests of contacts for
corporate entertainment purposes.
"The result is that the current status of a relationship with any
client can be viewed easily and quickly and either printed off for
meetings or sent electronically to clients via a secured extranet,
on request.
"It makes for more accurate records and flexible communications
with clients," says Thomson. "We're working on rolling out
additional functionality so that clients can have direct access to
our electronic files to see what we're doing, track e-mail
correspondence on caseloads, see progress and suggest further
activities. In due course I would very much like to enable clients
to work on those electronic files themselves - for straightforward
transactions or where our clients' in-house counsels would like us
to monitor what they're doing in case additional assistance is
required."
To date, technology has certainly made Morton Fraser more
efficient. It has also enabled less experienced or qualified staff
work on more complex cases since processes they have to follow have
been predefined by a system which alerts senior staff if deviations
from the norm are attempted, or if delays occur in carrying out
essential tasks.
"We don't use it as a big stick or anything but just to ensure we
maintain service levels to clients," says Thomson. "It's proof that
this is a knowledge management tool that requires peoples' input to
work effectively. We're not trying to replace staff here, just
automate routine tasks. Technology gets you 95% of the way there
but it doesn't do the whole job for you. Rather, it leaves you to
focus on the bits of that particular transaction that really
require legal expertise. I think there will always be a need for
advocacy skills and specific expertise in particular areas of the
law."
Where other firms have had trouble selling this concept to their
staff, Morton Fraser has experienced little resistance to the
roll-out of IT in its practice.
"Maybe we have a slightly different culture here," says Thomson.
"We've made sure that people see the technology working and that it
doesn't replace their skills - it just allows them to get through
their day-to-day work more efficiently, and to delegate routine
work more easily."
Thomson's advice to others in the legal profession looking to
computerise is to get their core matter management system in place
first so that it logically defines the way they work, and then
interlink that with any CRM and precedent-handling systems.
"Start with the horse and put the cart behind it," he says. "If we
were starting again from scratch I would also go for a consistent
IT platform, not a mixture of technologies."
He warns, "The legal profession definitely needs to become more
IT-aware. The writing's on the wall for any firm that's not, for
example, either already started or about to start the process of
running conveyancing work on some form of electronic basis. If you
can't live with that then you'd better find something else to make
money out of.
"Whether or not we'll see a series of niche practices develop who
specialise in particular forms of legal work I don't know, but
certainly I think a lot of the bread-and-butter work that the
profession does today is already starting to change. On the
commercial side, big clients will be looking more and more for
legal firms to fit into their own system framework and use
business-to-business communications and you can't do that unless
you have electronic records there to start with."
Thomson concludes, "The world is changing and it's changing far
quicker for legal firms with the arrival of the Internet. Lawyers
don't actually produce anything physical that anybody wants, it's
all documentation. I don't see how the legal profession can fail to
be significantly impacted by the development of a global
communications network. I think that in the next 10-20 years the
Internet will revolutionise the way in which all legal firms
operate."
IT pressures on the legal profession
The legal profession
has long had trouble accepting that much of its bread-and-butter
work - debt recovery, conveyancing, executorial matters - are
logical processes that can easily be documented and automated by
computer.
Many lawyers feel that their hard-won professional mystique is
threatened by the advent of knowledge management systems that can
guide less-qualified staff to take accurate legal judgments. They
also fear that their high fee structures will be called into
question if technology opens up their business systems to scrutiny
by clients. Customers are increasingly demanding legal self-service
where they can dial into a legal firm's systems to track progress
on specific cases and compare time and billing records, and
efficiency and speed on worksheets with rival practices.
Nevertheless, the onward march of technology in the legal
profession is unstoppable. It's being driven both by private
customers who are turning to Web sites offering cheap legal
services and do-it-yourself legal advice, and commercial customers
who expect all firms they deal with today to offer computerised
services they can link into, and information update reporting, on
demand.
Insurance companies, too, are putting pressure on legal firms to
adopt technology. They are anxious to ensure that those legal firms
which take on low-margin debt recovery work are able to make a
profit - not because they care but because they only want to deal
with secure businesses for such sensitive work.
Meanwhile, the recent consolidation among legal firms is likely to
accelerate the creation of a two-tier profession, with one set of
firms providing high volumes of low-priced routine legal work, and
another set serving the more demanding and complex needs of the
commercial world where human legal expertise will almost certainly
always be required.
"I think we should expect the bulk of legal firms to see the light
on IT as early adopters flourish and clients threaten to take their
business elsewhere if computerised services cannot be provided, but
undoubtedly there will be some that will fall by the wayside,"
predicts Stuart Holden, managing director of IT legal solutions
provider, Axxia Systems, which commands about 25% of the UK market
for practice management systems.
"There are times when you need the individual skills of the
maestro, but mostly you just need very high standard, competitive,
consistent work which can be processed by computers. However,
although it's an uphill battle to win the confidence of lawyers in
automating their expertise, I think it's getting easier."
A key area is the need for national standards in coding legal
firms, legal experts, the courts, law enforcement organisations and
every other body involved in the judicial process in the UK.
Currently, everyone uses their own codes and so information on
cases cannot be easily shared electronically when the time comes to
involve other parties in the justice system.
Industry experts are split on whether the creation of a common list
of codes should be a central government initiative or not.
Meanwhile, despite a Luddite tendency, UK legal firms are generally
further ahead than their European counterparts in their adoption of
IT. This country's courts could become the first choice for
European firms to settle their legal disputes if legal firms can
show that they are faster and more efficient because of their use
of technology. It's a massive market worth a lot of money, but it
requires every legal eagle to take a lead.
Morton Fraser's IT set-up
- Informix database on a SCO Unix platform
- Case management software from AxxiaSystems
- Windows 95, 98, 2000 and NT desktops with the possibility of
Citrix Metaframe thin clients
- Novell Netware network and Groupwise e-mail.