Background:
Berrymans Lace Mawer is a top-50 UK law firm of more than 1,200 staff and 125 partners, with offices in Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Southampton and Stockton-on-Tees. The firm operates in almost fifty areas of law, with a particular focus on insurance litigation, and is one of the largest insurance law firms in the country.
BLM’s legacy Case Management System (CMS) had delivered significant benefits however the technology was starting to fall short of meeting both the internal needs of the firm and increasing demands from clients to provide access to greater management information. To consolidate and improve its competitive position, BLM therefore believed it would be highly beneficial to develop a new IT strategy to provide improved case management functionality and management information for the firm and its clients.
The firm chose to achieve these aims by implementing a ‘next-generation’, fully web-based CMS framework that supported rapid deployment and adaptation of data and processes. Following an extensive search and evaluation of solutions, carried out by key decisions-makers at the firm and external consultants, FloSuite Legal was selected.
The FloSuite Legal Case Management System deployment project was delivered on schedule, to budget and has successfully enhanced the services and management information that the firm is able to provide. FloSuite Legal is a solution used by legal, financial, government and professional services organisations around the world to manage requirements for Case Management and Business Process Management (BPM).
The Challenge:
The key objectives at the outset of the project were as follows (and as illustrated in Figure 1):
• Deliver improved quality and more flexible Management Information for both clients and lawyers;
• Deliver a single working environment with seamless integration to multiple front and back office systems such as Microsoft Outlook/Office and the practice management system;
• Improve the efficiency of working practices;
• Provide a flexible technical platform which is easily maintainable, scalable and extensible, and supports business change, diversification and growth;
• Implement BLM best-practice processes, quality handling and environmental targets and standards.
Figure 1
The target business benefits BLM wished to achieve were:
• Maintain BLM’s competitive position and further improve the quality of care and service provided to clients;
• Reduce the time to respond to and turnaround business requests;
• Increase access to key information for lawyers and clients, including via self-service web-based portals;
• Reduce the total cost of ownership of the CMS;
• Have a positive environmental impact through reduction in the use of paper, improved remote access for clients and staff, and modern, efficient and greatly-consolidated hardware infrastructure.
Implementation:
BLM engaged consultants to assist them in capturing the requirements for all practice areas for matter and case management throughout the firm.
The first modules were delivered within eight weeks of the initial FloSuite Legal software installation by FloSuite Legal Consultants working in conjunction with BLM staff, with the process aided by early and close involvement from key BLM business sponsors. What helped to make this a success was that people felt confident about using the system and were keen to make good use of the new tools it provided.
The development is ongoing and Fran Evans, BLM’s Head of IT, said: ” FloSuite Legal has been supportive throughout the programme. We needed to work with a vendor that could provide the skills we required to build and deploy a varied and highly complex set of business requirements quickly across different practice areas.”
The Results:
BLM is currently on target to achieving an 18-month financial pay-back on the firm’s FloSuite Legal CMS investment.
This will continue to improve how BLM works with clients, and it will enhance the services and management information the firm is able to provide. The FloSuite Legal project also supports BLM’s stated objective of using technology as a key differentiator to provide innovative solutions to lawyers and clients.
Business Improvements:
The new FloSuite Legal Case Management Solution, provides:
• The ability for BLM to innovate in providing solutions for lawyers and clients using the latest web technologies;
• An increased number of work types managed and administered through the firm’s CMS;
• Better quality, more flexible management information (MI) for BLM users and clients;
• A next generation, fully web-based, user-friendly interface increasing the efficiency of working practices for lawyers, handling both large and small volumes of tasks;
• Management of compliance in-line with client requirements;
• Support for risk management through supervision and escalation;
• Full implementation of BLM best-practice and quality handling standards;
• A flexible web-based framework which is maintainable, scalable and extensible and supports business change, diversification and growth;
• Tight integration with the firm’s Practice Management system, Digital Dictation solution and popular Microsoft solutions (Office and Outlook 2007).
Benefits Realisation:
The following measureable benefits have either accrued or are on target to do so due to the successful delivery of the new FloSuite Legal Case Management Solution:
• A reduction in delivery times for business initiated change requests;
• Management information successfully delivered to key clients to improve client satisfaction levels;
• Management information delivered electronically in real-time to lawyers and their clients;
• A reduction in management overhead by automating tasks and reminders;
• The introduction of new work types;
• The removal of requirement for duplicate data entry;
• Reduced environmental impact by using new blade hardware, replacing less efficient legacy hardware, overall improving energy consumption by 25% whilst significantly increasing the computing density;
• Reduced environmental impact by using new blade hardware, replacing less efficient legacy hardware, overall improving energy consumption by 25% whilst significantly increasing the computing density;
• Reduced environmental impact through reducing paper use within the organisation and with external clients so supporting BLM ‘zero to landfill’ target within 10 years.
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