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First there was case management. The purpose of a case management system is to manage the stages which a file must go through so as to increase the reliability of the work of the firm and to ensure that nothing is missed. It often enables less highly qualified staff to carry out the routine tasks, leaving the lawyer to attend to the parts for which legal knowledge is required.
Although case management systems have been available for at least 10 years, it is probably only in the last 2 or 3 years that they have been widely installed and used in High Street firms. This is partly because the software was not, originally, flexible enough to cope with the many different ways in which solicitors carry out their work, and partly (in my opinion) because most firms have underestimated the amount of work which needs to be done to "re-engineer" any particular legal process. Many firms have started out on the case management route, involving considerable expense and work in implementation, and then quietly abandoned it as internal opposition has been too great.
Although case management has been slow in arriving it is now, I would say, well and truly "here", and fee-earners can see, at a glace, which activities of a job have been completed, and which activities have yet to be carried out. If that information is available to the fee-earner, why not make it available also to the client on a web page? The client will then not only be impressed by the efficiency of the solicitor, but will be able to follow the progress of his work online rather than ringing up the solicitor all the time to find out how the job is going.
This process is generally called case tracking online and there has been a great deal of talk about this topic over the last 2 or 3 years. The purpose of my investigation, and this article, is to discover whether case tracking online is widespread and how it is developing.
Some examples and demonstrations of case tracking online are provided on the following firms’ sites:
1. The firm’s case management software can send an email or a text message to the client when an activity is completed. This does not involve a website at all, but it fulfills the same purpose as case tracking online and so I am including it here. This is actually quite easy to do and it avoids most of the problems of security which are inherent in web-based systems.
2. The firm can adopt a do-it-yourself approach, taking the reports available within its case management system and converting these reports to html (i.e. the language in which web pages are written). Many conversion programs exist to convert text to html format, including the html-writing facilities available within Microsoft Word itself. The html pages are then loaded onto the firm's website and the passwords can be set up without too much difficulty. Note that these will be periodic reports - typically produced from the case management system once or twice a day, and so the information provided on the web site will only be as up to date as the most recent uploading process. All this can be done by an enthusiastic and knowledgeable individual or IT department and quite a few firms - large and small - have done this themselves. This approach has the advantage of being cheap and flexible but perhaps the disadvantage that, as other facilities are required (for example, the ability to accept input from the client or the extension of the case tracking to documents) the home made programs may not be able to cope.
3.The firm can use software from the software developer who provided the case management software. Most of the larger software suppliers are offering "add-on" modules to their case management software although not all of them have users already up and running. The software supplier is able to do a professional job on the extraction of the data and the conversion to web format and also to assist with the problems of security.
4. The next stage beyond the provision of fixed format reports provided on a web site is for the client to be able to choose the type of report required and for the report to be generated, in real time, as and when he wants it. This is much more difficult since the report generating software has to be on the web server in order to generate the report and generally the web server has either to be hosted directly on the firm’s site, with access to the main case management system, or on the supplier’s site, as a service provided by the software supplier (but “branded” according to the firm’s requirements) .
5. Once you accept the concept of the software supplier hosting the website, then a new type of service provider emerges - that of new companies, not necessarily providing the whole range of solicitors software, but providing a case management system with online case tracking on their site. The firm then runs the software as a remote application. This sounds like an “odd” way of working but it is proving quite successful in a few cases.
6. "Extranet" or "Dealroom" software. There is actually a spectrum of complexity in the provision of case tracking online, going from emails sent out at key points in a job (the simplest end, as described in 1 above) to an extranet or dealroom which offers not only case tracking software but also the ability for the client to input new cases to the system, to view the documentation involved with the case and to share documents with authorised individuals from his own, or the other, side. This type of software is obviously much more complicated than "just" case tracking software but is proving popular with larger firms. This article is not really covering dealrooms but I hope to return to this topic in the next issue.
I found that the systems available for corporate clients are far in advance of the ones for private clients. Nearly all the firms who came forward to describe their systems were in fact providing case tracking facilities to their corporate users rather than their individual private clients. This also matches the fact that some of the earliest users of case management generally were major companies providing debt collection or conveyancing rather than the typical High Street firm of solicitors.
There is another variant on this theme which is where the case management system is run by the company providing the service and the company requires the firm of solicitors to input data to their case tracking system.
1. If a firm is extracting periodic (probably daily) output from its case management system and publishing this in a fixed format, then it is possible to upload the data to a website hosted by one of the main hosting companies and to set up passwords for client access. However, the firm is not really in control of the security here and is very dependent on the facilities provided by the hosting company. In addition, the reports will only be as up to date as the most recent extraction of information.
2. Any system which requires the generation of reports in real time will also require the main case management database and the reporting software to be closely associated with the website. This website can then be located either:
i) On the firm’s premises, under the firm’s control or
ii) On the supplier’s premises, under the supplier’s control.
In the former case, the firm keeps control of the data but is responsible for all aspects of security, which can be quite difficult and would certainly not be possible without a “proper” IT department and considerable in-house skills. In the latter case, the software supplier takes on the security issues but there is another issue here - is it really acceptable for a firm to pass on its confidential client data to a third party?
I have the impression that some of the suppliers of the necessary software for case tracking online do not really want to be involved in the security aspects of firm's site - which is a different specialism and a very tricky one. To cope with the problems, some of the firms setting up these systems have spent many thousands of pounds on security consultants and software products and are still unsure whether they have covered all the potential problems. Before embarking on a project of this sort, it is essential that the security aspects are fully investigated and costed.
Another aspect to be considered is the type of communications line needed. Most of the firms who contacted me are in the process of installing ADSL lines (or already have them), either for their web site hosted on their own premises, or for the link to the Hosting site. This is another expense and another topic to be mastered.
For a description of what the main suppliers have to offer in this area, see Suppliers Offering Case Tracking Online. Should you “shop around” for the best online software? In my opinion, you should first of all investigate your own "main" software supplier before looking to any of the others, since there is always a risk involved in bringing in extra suppliers and then having systems which do not fit together. It could be better to wait a few months until your own supplier can offer the facilities you need, rather than embark on a completely new project with a new supplier.
With any potential supplier of this software, I suggest:
1. Find out which firms are already using the software and talk to them; suppliers always seem to count firms who have purchased their software as “users” whilst these “users” may, in fact, be at the very beginning of the implementation process!
2. Find out whether the reporting is carried out at intervals and uploaded to a website on that basis, or is carried out in real time, at the very moment that the client enquires. There are pros and cons to both types of solution but the implications of each are considerable.
3. Related to this question, find out where the resultant web site is hosted and the security implications of this; do you have the skills needed to do this yourself?
I will continue to cover this topic over the next few issues and I will be including some case studies of firms carrying out case tracking online, and a “deal room”, next time.
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