Peppermint Technology will for the first time enable large law firms to take a modular approach to rolling out its cloud services, with new services including PeppCRM, PeppCase and PeppPMS able to integrate with existing law firm applications including back office practice management & accounts systems and document management systems.
The major change of direction – a departure from the pure ‘one-stop-shop’ approach that has proved unpalatable or unmanageable for many law firms – will enable firms wishing to embrace the Peppermint CX Cloud Platform to do so in a phased approach. Firms can start by implementing the new front office service then, “in time and if appropriate”, replace traditional legacy applications with the Peppermint CX Platform. Firms wishing to roll out CX in one go will still be able to.
Founder & CEO of Peppermint, Arlene Adams, said: “Our new cloud services are a direct response to demand from large law firms. Many firms want to combine existing practice management and document management applications with a powerful and modern CRM, matter management, and case management service. We have built a connection hub to allow firms to plug existing applications into Peppermint’s powerful, Microsoft Dynamics based, front-office services. This gives firms access to modern, client-centric, services without disrupting other core applications. The Peppermint cloud services further allow firms to take advantage of future Microsoft cloud services, such as machine learning and AI, offered under the evolving Microsoft cloud strategy.”
The move is a sign that Peppermint, which, founded in 2010, has previously been criticised for failing to understand the market it operates in, is maturing and listening to both criticism and positive law firm feedback. It will inevitably be interpreted by some as an acceptance of failure of the earlier wholesale adoption model that led to lengthy and difficult rollouts at firms such as Blake Morgan, Wilson Solicitors and B P Morgan. It will also mean law firms can potentially cherry pick bits of the Peppermint offering in a move away from the one platform approach that Peppermint has so far set its stall by.
Peppermint has 6,000 users within circa 40 law firms, 12 firms being listed in the Legal Top 200. Clients including Blake Morgan LLP, Penningtons Manches LLP, Cripps LLP, Brethertons LLP, Tees Law and asb law LLP.
Its change in strategy comes as Peppermint signs iTrain direct to extend the scale of training support available to existing clients and those moving to the Peppermint CX Cloud.
iTrain Direct are leading providers of training and change management services to the legal market. They project manage, design and deliver training on a wide range of legal systems, specialising in practice management, case management and document management, as well as Microsoft Office training.
Chris Doran, Peppermint’s director of professional services, commented: “Partnering with iTrain gives us access to high quality training resources with valuable legal domain knowledge. Our strategy is to embrace specialist Partners, such as iTrain, to enable the scale of Peppermint and allow us to meet the growing demand for Peppermint CX Cloud. We have already delivered several successful projects with iTrain, including several top 200 firms and our largest project to date.”