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26 February 2020
Issue: 7876 / Categories: Features , Profession
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Next generation software: next steps

How to find the best IT suppliers for your next generation software. A guide for Practice Managers tasked with pulling together a short-list, by Brian Welsh, CEO at Insight Legal

If you’re reading this then you won’t need telling about the winds of change blowing through the legal landscape. It’s a familiar tale. Everyone it seems is expecting twice as much to be done, in half the time for no more money! The rising expectations of clients, the requirements of the regulators and the growth of ‘volume’ providers are akin to a perfect storm affecting many firms’ financial performance.

Is efficiency, productivity and profitability important to your firm? If so, then a modern legal IT system, meeting the needs of the practice and its clients is vital for long-term sustainability. Sadly, the efficiencies that need to be found no longer exist by just improving existing methods. As Henry Ford, a true innovator said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

It may be time, at the start of a new decade, that your firm looked again at what IT software solutions can deliver.   
The challenge for Practice Managers tasked with scouring the supplier market, is whittling down a long list of ‘possible’ IT suppliers to a sensible short-list of ‘suitable’ IT suppliers. Only by finding the right supplier for your firm will the efficiency, productivity and profitability benefits be unlocked.

Sadly, unscrupulous suppliers do exist in the legal IT market. Sales tactics and retention strategies can be at the sharper end of what law firms are used to. Some suppliers see firms as soft targets; they are perceived to have deep pockets and are not as IT savvy as ‘real’ businesses.

Any independent evidence available about the quality of a software supplier is valuable. Accreditations or approved supplier status are two examples. Insight Legal is recognised as an Approved Supplier by The Law Society of Scotland and as a Strategic Partner of the Law Society of England and Wales.

Our commitment is to deliver an honest, proudly independent, approachable and technologically flawless service for law firms in an ever-competitive legal IT sector.

Our guide about choosing a reputable supplier, is designed to help IT Directors and Practice Managers through the process of identifying a supplier short-list and then how to select the right partner.


Issue: 7876 / Categories: Features , Profession
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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Gateley Legal—Jack Kelly

Gateley Legal—Jack Kelly

Gateley Legal expands Midlands residential development team

Gibson Dunn—Richard Surtees

Gibson Dunn—Richard Surtees

Gibson Dunn adds employee benefits and executive compensation practice in London with partner Richard Surtees

Laytons ETL—Alec Cameron

Laytons ETL—Alec Cameron

Laytons ETL appoints new partner and head of intellectual property disputes

NEWS
A series of recent decisions has clarified important principles across property law, from perpetuities to lease renewals and public rights over land
Employers cannot rely on wellbeing services alone to defend workplace stress claims after a High Court decision awarding almost £1m to an overworked employee
Andy Burnham's brand of 'Manchesterism' could offer fresh thinking on legal aid and access to justice if it reaches Westminster, according to Roger Smith, NLJ columnist and former director of JUSTICE
The constitutional fallout from a change of prime minister, rather than the politics, is under scrutiny as questions arise over the limits of executive authority in a leadership transition
The legal profession is undergoing a fundamental shift from selling services to creating technology-enabled products, according to Professor Luke Mason, Head of School of Law at Regent's University London
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