A smartphone app that takes clients through every process of their case is being expanded to handle industrial disease claims.

Sucheet Amin (pictured), managing director of Manchester firm Aequitas Legal, said he has chosen to extend the inCase app ahead of potential fixed fees for industrial disease claims.

The technology, marketed as the first of its kind in the legal sector, was launched last year for personal injury claims and has since been extended to conveyancing.

Amin said 18 firms and 400 lawyers have now signed up to the tool, which is integrated with each firm’s case management system.

‘Demand from specialist law firms in industrial disease meant that the time for inCase to expand was right,’ he added.

‘By integrating the ability to send messages and documents to a client directly into the case management system, the ease at which lawyers can communicate with their clients is dramatically improved.’

The inCase app is offered on a licence basis depending on the number of employees, rather than the number of clients that use it.

Minimum monthly charges are £450 plus VAT, with the company stressing that outlay is outweighed by savings in postage and printing costs. Firms can choose their own bespoke service, including changing the app version to match their own colours and branding.

Amin developed inCase in 2012 to meet the challenges caused by the fixed-fee regime introduced under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, and the current noises coming from Westminster about future reforms have prompted expansion.

The government has said it supports expanding the scope of fixed fees after a speech by Lord Justice Jackson last month. Insurers have made no secret of their wish for fixed fees in noise-induced hearing loss claims, and firms dealing with these cases are likely to face increase pressure to bring costs down.