Call to key into e-form benefits

AUTOMATED PROCESSING: legal sector has 'yet to identify business opportunities'

Law firms are increasingly using electronic forms (e-forms) instead of paper for internal processes, but lag behind the financial and government sectors in appreciating their revenue-generating possibilities, recent research has concluded.

The study into use of e-forms across the three sectors, conducted by MORI on behalf of Adobe Systems, found that more than two in five law firms currently havee-forms in place, and nearly a quarter have a fully automated processing system for them.

However, IT decision-makers in law firms are less aware than other sectors of the cost-saving and storage benefits of e-forms.

Of non-users, only 24% plan implementation in the next two years.

'The difficulty with law firms is that the partners effectively pay money directly from their pockets,' said Mark Floisand, marketing director at Adobe.

'The government normally has a budget it can allocate to projects, but you have to sell directly to partners and many smaller firms will perceive the cost of implementation as a drawback.'

Mr Floisand said that while the legal sector currently runs internal processes on e-forms, it 'is yet to identify business opportunities for generating extra revenue via a new form structure'.

Tim Hanson, information systems consultant at City giant Linklaters, said that while e-forms are successfully used for the majority of the firm's internal processes, their external use can run into problems.

'We carry out a lot of cross-border deals involving data being moved around the world and manipulated on a frequent basis.

It just takes one person in the chain not to be comfortable with using computer-generated documents and we have to take alternative action.'

Dan Burge, a technology partner at Denton Wilde Sapte, said: 'You have to ask yourself ultimately if it is worth making a process electronic.

It very much depends on the nature of the client and transaction as to what level of security is required, although we have never found the possibility of clients not trusting e-forms a massive problem.'

Mr Burge said law firms are currently 'at the investment as opposed to the receiving benefit stage, but are looking to the future.'

Andrew Towler