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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
printer mail-details

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Jurit LLP—Caroline Williams

Jurit LLP—Caroline Williams

Private wealth and tax team welcomes cross-border specialist as consultant

Freeths—Michelle Kirkland Elias

Freeths—Michelle Kirkland Elias

International hospitality and leisure specialist joins corporate team as partner

Flint Bishop—Deborah Niven

Flint Bishop—Deborah Niven

Firm appoints head of intellectual property to drive northern growth

NEWS
Talk of a reserved ‘Welsh seat’ on the Supreme Court is misplaced. In NLJ this week, Professor Graham Zellick KC explains that the Constitutional Reform Act treats ‘England and Wales’ as one jurisdiction, with no statutory Welsh slot
The government’s plan to curb jury trials has sparked ‘jury furore’. Writing in NLJ this week, David Locke, partner at Hill Dickinson, says the rationale is ‘grossly inadequate’
A year after the $1.5bn Bybit heist, crypto fraud is booming—but so is recovery. Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Holloway, founder and CEO of M2 Recovery, warns that scams hit at least $14bn in 2025, fuelled by ‘pig butchering’ cons and AI deepfakes
After Woodcock confirmed no general duty to warn, debate turns to the criminal law. Writing in NLJ this week, Charles Davey of The Barrister Group urges revival of misprision or a modern equivalent
Family courts are tightening control of expert evidence. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Chris Pamplin says there is ‘no automatic right’ to call experts; attendance must be ‘necessary in the interests of justice’ under FPR Pt 25
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