Three stories for you this week – two involving BigHand but for our first one we look at LexisNexis…
• Lexis shows an affinity for GlobalX
LexisNexis Pacific has announced its partnership with GlobalX for both transactional searches and PEXA. This partnership has been created to improve workflow processes, increase efficiencies and enable improved productivity for its small to large law practice management clients. Following a successful integration with Lexis Affinity in 2013, this partnership has most recently been seen in PCLaw, a small law practice management system, with integration to the LexisNexis Searches solution powered by GlobalX. This integration makes over 1200 transactional search services available to firms using PCLaw and Lexis Affinity, streamlining the processing of matters, reducing delays and avoiding the risk of manual errors.
“We have partnered with GlobalX to benefit our clients and provide an improved and fully integrated practice management solution”, said James Parker, Executive Director, Practice Management LexisNexis. “The ability to introduce more efficient processes that can save firms time and money is vital to any practice, and this integration which automates that process is the most effective way to guarantee optimal performance”.
www.lexisnexis.com.au/pclaw
www.globalx.com.au
• BigHand now hosted in Australia
“BigHand is please to confirm the launch of BigHand Professional solution hosted in Australia,” Tony Bleasdale, BigHand Director for APAC, announced earlier this week. “In the past year BigHand has continued to grow its SaaS market with more and more clients realising it is more than a trend and that they are able to use our premium SaaS solutions”
BigHand is responding to the demand to have a locally hosted solution for users in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore and across Asia. These clients want to use the BigHand Professional solution and benefit from greater local support in legal and professional services firms demanding the benefits of utilising the features in BigHand. BigHand conducted a thorough process to find the right providers for the hosted environment. This involved reviewing a number of providers which finally lead to BigHand selecting Matrix Solutions to provide secure, cost effective infrastructure and supported by their outstanding reputation and knowledge. Matrix Solutions provides tailored hosted desktop and network management solutions to professional firms. In addition, the company specialises in installation and support of Worldox document management software.
Anthony Ridley-Smith, Director of Matrix Solutions commented “It’s fantastic working with BigHand on the launch of this service. The partnership makes sense as we work with the same client base. We are very excited about the BigHand workflow integration with Worldox.”
www.bighand.com/apac
www.matrixsolutions.com.au
• Cowell Clarke overhauls IT with BigHand and Mobility
Finally, a change of management at Adelaide-based commercial law firm Cowell Clarke provided the impetus for an overhaul of much of its technology with the organisation upgrading its computers and installing WiFi throughout the offices. It also decided to replace its standalone analogue dictation system with a state-of-the-art streamlined digital dictation system from BigHand.
The firm has 60 fee earners and 14 partners who had in the past used hand held dictation devices loaded with tapes which had to be physically delivered to a secretary for transcription. As partner Rob Comazzetto explains, while the firm is based in Adelaide, it provides legal services around Australia and on occasion, internationally. While the analogue tape system was limping along in the home office, when partners travelled its flaws were magnified. “There were workarounds – people would dictate onto their iPhone then email that file and the secretary would try to transcribe it,” he says. But there was no visibility into the process and even in Adelaide, there’s always the risk of a tape being mislaid.
Comazzetto heads the firm’s insolvency and reconstruction and competition law sections – and has also taken on the responsibility for its technology refresh. Having looked at a series of different digital dictation solutions, he identified the BigHand solution as the best fit, and it was implemented in September. To boost efficiency and reduce the risk that arose from lost tapes Comazzetto recommended Cowell Clarke provide all fee earners with an iPhone loaded with BigHand’s app to support digital dictation. This meant they only had one device to carry, and could also automatically send dictations back to the office for transcription regardless of their location. Once a file note, memo or letter is dictated the voice file is sent immediately to the BigHand server in the Adelaide office, which manages workflow according to the priorities assigned to the voice file by the lawyer. Any backlogs or bottlenecks in the transcription process are transparent to the secretarial team which can reassign transcription jobs on the fly.
“It’s easy to pick up the work from BigHand workflow,” says Comazzetto, adding that this also ensures that dictations out of the office or overseas are automatically routed for transcription. “This makes it so much more useful,” he says.
Cowell Clarke has also integrated the BigHand system with its time charging application, Mitimes. When a lawyer starts a dictation they are prompted to enter a description and matter number which then ensures that the time taken to dictate a letter or file note is automatically noted on the lawyer’s time sheets. Comazzetto said the firm did not opt for speech recognition mainly due to just concentrating on making the transition from analogue to digital. Comazzetto stated that the voice recognition module was definitely on the firm’s short term roadmap.