PROBATE SOLICITORS HAVE LITTLE OPTION BUT TO EMBRACE MODERN METHODS IF THEY ARE TO SEE OFF THE COMPETITION, WARNS ROBERT VERKAIKHigh street probate practitioners are being urged to cast off their dour image and find new ways of marketing themselves.

If they don't, they may find their businesses falling victim to a new breed of licensed probate professional.

Some are already feeling the squeeze from non-solicitor will writers, accountants and bankers doing estate work.Only last week the Lord Chancellor's Department confirmed that it was keen to press ahead with powers which were given in the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 to create a new category of authorised probate practitioner to compete directly with soli citors.

The Law Society is planning to head off this competition.

On 2 July at the second Annual National Conference for Probate, Trust and Estate Practitioners (see panel), Chancery Lane officials will launch a probate section modelled to some degree on the American Bar Association's own highly effective section groups.Gerald Newman, the Society's deputy director of communications, says it is the existing and potential competitive threat to solicitor's traditional probate practice that is partly why the Society chose probate as its first section.Mr Newman explains: 'Research we recently carried out showed many of the 12,000 probate solicitors work in isolation with a lack of knowledge of how the market is developing.

They didn't know whether they were gaining or losing market share or even what rates the competition was charging.'Last week, Ed Nally, chairman of the Law Society's land law and succession committee, asked the Council to demerge his committee, enabling a separate probate committee to concentrate on serving its own specific interests.

The Council agreed unanimously.

Mr Nally says this will help to heighten the profile of probate work generally.

'It will give a proper emphasis to an area of work which is under attack from the big institutions at a time when we should be at the forefront,' he said.Mr Nally fears probate work could go the same way as conveyancing.

'Every different area that has proved a traditional and profitable area of legal work has come under attack from one quarter or another,' he says.

'Probate is not an exception.'He believes strongly that because probate is a particularly technical skill, it is not an area in which well-intentioned amateurs should dabble.

He maintains that 'solicitors have a recognised expertise in the administration of estates, the development of wills, settlements and trusts.

We don't give ourselves enough credit for those skills.

The actual monopolistic position of the big institutions, like the high street banks and the large chartered accountants, will not serve the public well.' But Mr Nally, a partner with Bolton and Blackburn firm Fieldings Porter, accepts that 'as a breed we are not good marketeers, and as a profession we tend to ply our trade in a peaceable and calm way'.The new section should go some way to help probate practitioners marshal their response to the changing market.

It will also give them a greater sense of unity and collective strength.

Mr Newman hopes 'it will mean we can stay ahead of the existing and future competition by providing real benefits to probate practitioners.' The official call to arms will follow the July conference when each probate practitioner will receive an enrolment pack.Mr Nally would like to see the section acting as a forum for the presentation of new marketing initiatives by drawing upon the 'wealth of experience' of probate departments up and down the country.'That's sadly lacking at the moment, and I think it's a reflection on the nature of the work and often the nature of the types of solicitors delivering that work.' He says that average trusts and probate solicitor is 'conservative with a small c, to whom the concept of marketing a department is new territory'.Peter Raymond is chairman-designate of the new probate section advisory group.

He says it is important to look at modern probate departments in broad terms, not simply wills and estates.

'Unless you are in a large City firm you are unlikely to be able to look at it as purely probate.'A probate practice, says Mr Raymond, should tie in with the rest of the private client work.

He says that because client expectations have been raised, probate solicitors should be prepared to 'put themselves out more and go the extra mile'.

Mr Raymond also says they should be 'accessible and approachable' to clients.

'They want someone who can discuss things with them, not someone who is going to give them a brusque service.'Mr Raymond is keen to promote the beneficial role of financial services in a private client department.

He says assistance in will writing will automatically lead to a discussion about a client's financial position.The fact that we are all living longer, says Mr Raymond, means the demographic make-up of the country is changing and there is a new market that solicitors need to tap into.

'The elderly need help with their finances because they feel vulnerable in the present climate.

The profession is in the best position to give it.'Alan Ciechan is a partner with London firm Boodle Hatfield, in charge of probate at the Oxford office where most of the firm's probate work is done.

He sees value in harnessing developments in information technology to modernise the standard probate department.

He also understands the need for solicitors to be aware of the potential for 'cross-selling' of services.

'Frequently you are presented with beneficiaries of an estate who, perhaps for the first time in their lives, have a substantial amount of capital and are looking for advice.' This, he says, presents solicitors with a 'tremendous opportunity'.Mr Nally notes there are more 'forthright' marketing strategies a probate solicitor can consider.

These, he suggests, might include greater contact with organisations which look after the interests of the elderly.

'I would be quite keen to see liaison developing with the major charities, citizen advice bureaux and the social services, to see where their needs lie.' This, Mr Nally says, is already taking place.

However, he suggests that direct approaches to nursing homes might be too close to 'probate ambulance chasing'.

In terms of the battle ahead, Mr Nally says the profession's fight to retain probate and associated work will pit the public image of the high street solicitor against that of banks and accountants.

The new probate section, says Mr Nally, will help combat the 'massive advertising resources' available to the banks and accountants.PROBATE HAS BEEN A MARKETING NO-GO AREA UNTIL RECENTLY.

KIM TASSO SPEAKS TO THOSE WHO SAY CHANGE IS ON THE HORIZONWhile commercial lawyers and those in heavily competitive areas such as residential conveyancing were forced to embrace marketing several years ago, their colleagues in probate have managed to avoid the subject until recently.Many lawyers indicate that the probate team is the last bastion of anti-marketing feeling within their firms.

But things are changing -- proactive and innovative probate marketeers are emerging; the increasing age of the population leads to different needs and there are new entrants competing in the market.

So how are probate practitioners responding?Cole & Cole is a 31-partner firm with offices in Oxford and Reading and Heather Redman is the senior solicitor in charge of the four-strong probate team.

She says: 'The safe full of wills is no longer a guarantee of probate work.

The increasing mobility of people means that if they have moved away they will simply request the will to be transferred.

This means that initiatives such as Make a Will Week and WillAid, in which we have participated, need to be carefully assessed.'However, Ms Redman is keen to point out tha t the source of probate work is from the firm's existing clients.

An interesting discovery was that work from intermediaries was mostly from accountants -- despite concerns about accountants trying to lure work away from solicitors.An early marketing exercise for Ms Redman was in segmenting her market -- looking at the types of clients and referrers, and building marketing programmes that suited their needs.Separating out the high net worth individuals -- such as commercial clients and agricultural clients -- with high value estates and more complicated will, tax and trust requirements from the lower value clients was an important break-through.

A close liaison was needed between those doing lifetime tax planning and others concentrating on probate matters.Another important distinction was between marketing to existing clients and to those without prior contact with the firm.

Developing programmes to reach existing clients of the firm -- through articles in the firm's tax and commercial newsletters, preparing a number of plain English packages to help clients when considering enduring power of attorney among other concepts, using the databases in the residential conveyancing and family departments, raising awareness internally of the services available and cross selling -- is the cornerstone of her marketing success.

Ms Redman also recalls an exercise aimed at one of the intermediary segments: 'We invited the senior staff from local residential and nursing homes to attend an informal seminar designed to brief them on the range of questions -- wills, enduring powers of attorney, living wills, etc -- that residents were likely to ask.' As well as establishing important referrer relationships, the seminars helped Ms Redman's team to learn more about their clients' needs and perceptions.The experiences of Mehboob Dharamsi, private client partner at 14-partner practice Mundays in Esher, supports Ms Redman's views.

He says: 'We used an innovative advertising campaign immediately after the election to raise awareness of possible inheritance tax changes and we have presented talks to nursing homes and elderly clubs.

We have developed inserts for newsletters of similar organisations and have produced a range of comprehensive guides helping people understand their duties and responsibilities as personal representatives and trustees.

But by far the most successful marketing we do is as the private client team overall which is aimed at establishing and developing relationships with a range of intermediaries -- accountants, banks, agents and financial advisers -- for whom we do a substantial amount of probate related work such as sales.

We have a regular programme of informal and social events where we get together.

We are also running workshops for intermediaries looking at case studies.'Mr Dharamsi's firm took segmentation one stage farther than Cole & Cole: 'We decided to concentrate on the higher value and more complex wills and probate work which enables us to provide a higher level of personal service -- visiting clients at locations and times that suit them and taking time to explore and explain different options and opportunities.'These are the clients that value a quality service, a high degree of specialisation and the back up that a firm of this size can provide.'Michael Kaye, of two-partner, high street practice Kaye Tesler & Co, uses an innovative web site to target a different segment.

'We are targeting those in the 35 to 50-year-old age group with parents who have smaller estates.

There is rarely any capital transfer t ax.

They don't want advice -- they know how to gather and distribute the estate -- they want a finished product in applying for the relevant grant [he offers a grant of probate for £185 + VAT].

The interactive web site lets them read some explanatory material and prompts them for the information we require.

This information then goes direct into our computer system so that relevant forms and documentation are produced.

We state that relevant warnings and disclaimers for those with more complicated needs.'Mr Kaye goes on to talk about how the market will change in the future: 'Our site has generated enquiries and probate work.

Technology means we can provide an efficient, interactive service that meets the specific needs of our target clients.

The internet environment means that the small firms are on an even playing field with the largest firms in the country.'INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP PROBATE PRACTITIONERS, BUT JAMES MACKINTOSH POINTS OUT SOME POSSIBLE PITFALLSThere is a one-word answer to the question of what probate computer system to buy.

Don't! At least, not until the prospective buyer has gone through a detailed analysis of the business case.Those who have recently visited the Solicitors and Legal Office Exhibition in search of a probate system would no doubt have experienced the skillful presentations and the silver-tongued performance of capable salesmen.

By the time they left the exhibition hall, it is doubtful that many would be in any better position to make a rational decision about what to buy.

A computer system is no more than an additional overhead unless it either makes or saves money.It does, however, have the potential to deliver considerable productivity benefits.

But it needs to be the right system, properly implemented, operated by well-trained staff, properly maintained.

Inevitably, solicitors will have to spend time working out how the new system will impact on their business.

Unless they are prepared to take advantage of the opportunities to re-engineer the process of doing probate work (to ensure that the work flows efficiently, using staff with appropriate skills -- at minimum cost to the firm), they will be worse off at the end of the day.Taking into account the running costs of the computer system and, particularly the cost of managing its introduction and implementation, the user must have confidence that it will achieve a substantial payback.

Even as the new millennium approaches, there are firms which are still running a manual probate operation which is more efficient and more productive than firms which have invested heavily in IT.

For such firms, the decision point may only come when the highly skilled, trusted and underpaid senior secretary or book-keeper retires.Having painted a gloomy picture -- particularly for probate system suppliers -- the reality is that it is hard to picture an organisation which is not capable of making a handsome return on investment in a probate IT system, provided the appropriate management decisions are taken.

After all, estate administration work consists of a number of elements which lend themselves to computerisation.-- Figure work -- filing in tax returns and preparing accounts;-- Storage -- a central store of information about the file, particularly if that information can be used more than once, such as names, addresses and references;-- Ordering -- particularly when it comes to the preparation of accounts as a firm needs to be able to sort information into a structure which suits the purposes;-- Know-how -- computers offer access to information resources;-- Communication -- fax and e-mail from the PC.

Even at the primitive level of producing words on a page, the computer can deliver productivity benefits through proper use of word processing and electronic forms;-- Presentation -- not only do clients expect a low cost, high speed, high quality performance but they will also judge things by how good they look;-- Management -- computerisation offers a clear opportunity to specify standard practices and to enforce them.

It is then much easier to deal with staff absences through illness or holiday;-- Staff issues -- it will become increasingly difficult to find staff who are prepared to take on the drudge tasks which they are well aware can be better handled by information technology.The key question, then, is whether computer-based probate systems exist which can actually deliver the benefits outlined above.Until recently, an overall system did not exist.

Systems which offered partial solutions might offer a facility to record assets and liabilities to assist in the preparation of inheritance tax returns and as a starting point for the preparation of estate accounts.

They might offer full double entry book keeping to record, not only initial values, but also all subsequent transactions in relation to the estate.

They might only deal with the automation of the production of correspondence and forms, drawing information from a database.Within those broad categories, there were enormous differences in presentation, flexibility, ability to link with other systems, ease of use, price, quality of support and maintenance and other factors which must be taken into account in assessing which package to buy.

However, more recently the trend has been towards integrating the various estate administration functions into one package.

Some packages may go so far as to incorporate externally delivered services to provide portfolio valuations, dividend listing, corporate actions and CGT indexation computations.

A number of packages offer case management and full workflow facilities, to automate standard tasks.

The problem remains that for all but the largest firms, the overhead of carrying out the evaluation process is considerable.One of the early tasks of the new Law Society probate section should be to carry out a comparative evaluation of all the available packages and subject them to tests, using standardised data, in order to give a level playing field assessment of the real capabilities of the competing systems.