Technology and marketing for chambers
Ascot Drummond provides a broad range of accountancy, taxation and advisory services to many industries, including the Bar. They assist their clients in making informed business decisions and regulatory compliance – freeing them to concentrate on core business activities. They do this through a combination of online systems and the expertise of their specialist bar team. The company is based in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, and serves the whole of the UK.
Bar Marketing concentrates its skills on helping members of The Bar to compete in an ever changing and increasingly competitive market. Services include the formulation of strategies, planning and multi-channel execution. They can help with new business generation, client retention, press, PR and events, webinars, social media and the web. Director Catherine Bailey’s knowledge of the legal directory submission system (especially Chambers & Partners and the Legal 500) is first-rate. Bar Marketing staff work with sets of all sizes and specialisms as well as an increasing number of individual barristers who wish to increase their profiles and instructions.
Bar Squared are the authors of leading software LEX Chambers Management. Launched in 2007, the software is live in over 240 chambers worldwide and is now used by 70% of the UK market. LEX offers: Multi-view Diary – Case Management – Fees and Billing Contract Management – Graduated Fees – Workflow – Drill Through Reporting – Marketing – CRM (client and prospective solicitors) – Solicitor profiling – Mail Merge – Campaign Management – Diary to Exchange and to Blackberry/Windows Mobile – Practice Analysis – Document Management – Time Recording – Costs Budgeting – System Resilience – LEX for Mobile IE – iPhone app – Android app – advanced data security – integrated marketing facilities.
Chambers People is a consultancy and staff recruitment service for barristers’ chambers and law firms right across England and Wales. They provide staff recruitment at all levels of clerking and non-clerking posts, and they provide a full range of training sessions for staff in chambers. They also provide help to chambers on Bar Mark accreditation services, Business Development work, Market Research, and Freelance Clerking including fee collection. The company director is an experienced former Senior Clerk and Chambers Director – Martin Poulter.
Clerksroom is the administrative hub of a nationwide Barristers Chambers with meeting & mediation facilities in London, Manchester and Taunton (where the team of over 20 staff are located). There is also a robot junior clerk called Billy Bot which is not just for a laugh – serious development work on this topic is in progress. They offer a national service with a single point of contact. There are many Barristers and Associate Members, all over England and Wales, who undertake private client Civil and Family work at all UK courts & tribunals. Direct Access Barristers are covered with an associated website and service, Clerksroom Direct.
Legal RSS, run by well known legal marketing guru Joe Reevy, provides systems to allow a chambers with commentaries on issues to provide tailored newsfeeds to practices which are updated as soon as the item is posted on the chambers’ website. The system allows for automated social media marketing with high quality content, integrated event management software, and automatic content sharing.
My Bar Accountant is an innovative firm of accountants who were early pioneers in the field of cloud accounting. They provide a range of accountancy, taxation and advisory services and specialise in a select number of industries, including the Bar, where they provide real value to both barristers and their chambers. They operate a ‘pay what you want strategy’ and indeed, the website defaults to paywhatyouwant.co.uk
SproutIT, based in Fleet Street, are specialists in supporting and evolving networks, hardware and software in the legal industry covering everything from technical support to high level consultancy, project management and IT strategy. They are particularly active in cloud solutions. From diary migrations and case management, to document and contact management systems, they have worked with the industry leading software vendors.
