Case management - the bigger picture

Legal case management software is one of the most frequently misunderstood aspects of automation because it is so often portrayed as or perceived to be an out-of-the-box solution.

In fact, the technology element is only the final stage in the process and unless preliminary work is carried out, your case management system risks becoming nothing more than a very expensive word processor that turns your fee-earners into the firm's most highly paid secretaries.

The underlying concept behind all case management systems is that they can benefit your firm by automating aspects of legal work so that your firm can handle higher volumes of similar work than was previously possible without having to employ additional staff resources.

At the same time, it permits the routine aspects of the work to be safely delegated away from fee-earners to secretarial and non-qualified staff.

The net result should be not only an increase in the number of matters handled, which obviously contributes towards increased turnover, but also a significant rise in profitability because instead of highly paid solicitors handling the day-to-day aspects of the case, these are delegated to lower-paid staff.

Along with an increase in overall profitability, case management software also has the potential to make it a commercially viable proposition for firms to handle high-volume, low-margin work that previously would have been unprofitable.

But all these benefits assume there is buy-in from the firm and that all fee-earners fully understand the implications of automation as it applies to their own personal activities.

Or, to put it another way: there is no point investing money in a case management system to automate, for example, residential conveyancing work, if fee-earners still insist on dictating and preparing each individual item of correspondence that goes out to clients at every routine step.

Where case management comes into its own is that instead of lawyers - who need to be billing 100-plus per hour to justify their existence within the firm - spending their time doing this sort of work, the client is sent a personalised but otherwise standard format letter either automatically by the system or with minimal intervention by a junior member of staff whose cost to the firm is only between 10 and 20 per hour.

Unfortunately, in far too many firms, this bigger picture is still not fully appreciated, with the result that practices are not using case management as effectively as they could.

Charles Christian is an independent adviser to the Law Society's Software Solutions guide