The Civica Group just announced that Civica UK Limited, the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, has acquired legal IT solutions provider Norwel Computer Services Limited.
Based in Cheadle, Norwel specialises in application software and related services for the legal sector, supplying more than 60 customers in both public and private sectors. Its products for legal practice and case management, including cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, are used by customers to automate day-to-day processes for improved services and increased productivity.
The company has continued to perform well in 2016 with customers in private practice, local government and commercial, including new business wins such as Cumbria County Council and system implementations including Parisi Tax LLP and United Utilities.
Simon Downing, chief executive of Civica said, “I am delighted to welcome Norwel to the Civica Group. IT systems have an increasingly important role to play in delivering improved performance and efficiency in a changing legal sector. Norwel brings specialist expertise to extend our position in the sector, and the combined business is very well placed to respond to the needs of customers to do more, do better and spend less.”
Alan Richardson, managing director of Norwel, said, “This is a very positive development for customers, partners and employees. The combination of Norwel’s sector expertise and Civica’s breadth and depth of capability creates a stronger legal IT partner at an important time for the sector. We look forward to building on our joint strengths and vision in order to deliver increasing value to customers.”
COMMENT: Norwel is one of the oldest names in the UK legal IT sector and, back in the 1980s, was the market leader for large law firms. Today Trowers & Hamlins is its largest site however it has been winning business in the local authorities market. Civica is also now best known in the local authority legal sector although for many years its Galaxy software was also a serious contender in the law firms market.