The LawWare Annual Conference and User Group Meetings

User Group Conference Report - 11th November 2009

The LawWare User Group Conference and UGM 2009

Welcome

Warren Wander warmly welcomed one and all and laid out the day’s agenda. The morning would focus on ‘Helping you do more with what you have’ and the afternoon would look at ‘Helping shape the future of your business’.  There were over 70 LawWare clients personnel, and for the first time we also invited our business partners who numbered nearly 30 people. There were delegates travelling from as far as Dornoch and Kirkcudbright and we appreciate the time and effort that everyone made in order to attend.

The first of the day’s talks was entitled Risk Assessment and Money Laundering – Sink or Swim and featured an introduction by Les Cumming (former Chief Accountant, now with The Cashroom LLP) who demonstrated a breadth of knowledge and experience that was evident as he outlined the path that has lead to the current state of affairs and confidently (if that’s the word?) predicted that there was still a way to go on this. He highlighted how this aspect is now a major part of the LSoS audit and that firms are struggling to pass this aspect.  

This path was further illustrated by Ryan Morrison of GB Group and he detailed what happens behind the scenes of the online identity verification service that LawWare Enterprise can now integrate with (if you choose to subscribe). This process was demonstrated by Warren in order to show the ease and simplicity with which someone can incept a new client record and immediately verify their identity.

Simon Greig of LawWare then answered the question ‘Where are we with the Paperless Office?’ by saying that LawWare didn’t really subscribe to the Paperless Office but instead promoted the Paper-Lite Office as a far more achievable position for the type of clients that LawWare attract. He compared and contrasted the respective advantages and disadvantages of Electronic files and Paper files, concluding that there are merits in both but that the total sum of benefits of an Electronic file meant that it is worthy of consideration even if only as a backup to a Paper file.  

Simon’s points were then brilliantly illuminated by Eric Lumsden (Partner – Sneddon Morrison WS) who demonstrated his own use of Enterprise in achieving the Paper-Lite Office.  [The text of Simon’s talk is available on request].

Warren Wander then returned to the podium to pick up the overall theme of the day ‘How you can do more with what you have’. LawWare software is a constantly developing system and it has new features incorporated into the standard package which he demonstrated. 

Armed with all this new knowledge the group broke for a well deserved coffee and a catch-up with well kent faces.

Upon the resumption the group split into two with the business partners meeting separately away from LawWare Clients who were having their dedicated User Group Meeting. 

User Group Meeting

The user group session was introduced by Alastair Hart who re-iterated the theme of LawWare “Helping users do more with what they have” and suggested that users are ideally placed to highlight simple refinements or features that would provide immediate benefit to all.

This was followed by around 30 minutes of general quick fire questions from the audience for Warren Wander to respond to. 

Business Partner Meeting

This was lead by Simon Greig, who started the meeting by explaining LawWare’s current view regarding the Legal IT marketplace. Our software doesn’t operate in isolation; it needs Windows, Word, Outlook, and Internet Explorer in order to achieve clients expectations.  Similarly LawWare don’t operate in isolation, we need good business partners to assist us and our clients. We recognise this and want to maximise this aspect. We have taken advice on how to do this and Simon introduced Ken Moncrieff of The Infinite Group and asked Ken to set the scene for this session. Ken described how he had been working with Warren and described the thoughts that had been channelled: 

Simon then laid out LawWare’s thinking at this time. We recognise the value in co-operation and how this adds more value for the client. We are also keen to develop the way we work together and create new ways of delivering this value.

We then turned to look at LawWare’s clients as this represents our success to date. We have 150 law firms using our software. These are spread throughout Scotland and the numbers indicate that these are evenly spread per population, so there are no areas where we are particularly strong or weak. The ranges of Work Types that we can cater for are all those found in practise today, so there are no firms that we cannot offer something to. The size of firm that we are interested in is defined by those that are not very, very big and those that are not a one man operation (although this may change).

We are continuing to work with new software application suppliers and new web service suppliers in order to further our strategy to encompass more and more of the Activities that are performed within Law firms, at present in non-integrated ways, in order to bring a consistency of working, automatic capture what is happening and to centrally access & monitor the results of this. [The text of Simon’s talk is available on request]. 

There was an attractive lunch organised in the restaurant at Stirling Management Centre and lively and convivial chatter was noted.

The afternoon session 

The whole group reformed in the afternoon for the ‘Helping shape your future business’ part. Warren posed the question – Where will our businesses be in 5 years? And how can we make sure we are in the best place we can be. In order to help shape the thinking about this he introduced the main speaker for the day – Douglas Mill – and his unique insight.

Douglas is indeed unique! He described his main career points, starting out in practice in Paisley (with fond memories of smelly women and police cells) before moving to Edinburgh to become Chief Executive of the Law Society of Scotland (which was as much a culture change as anything else), where he formed his firmly belief in the general attitude of lawyers in Scotland. We are struggling to put into printable words his general gist – but let’s just say that he feels that lawyers could do with more happiness in their lives and be better acquainted with their biological parents. I’m still laughing - I think you probably are too!  

He expanded into an analysis of the skills required of those individuals leading law firms nowadays and provided general scores in these. He provided an insightful picture of how the shape of law firms has evolved decade by decade since the 1980’s. First he analysed the Supply and Demand of layers in this period to date and beyond. Then he analysed how the shape and structure of the top, middle and lower ends of legal organisations had changed over these decades, this was particularly fascinating when looking at today’s structure and more so when he related which of these wants the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill.

Douglas rounded off his tour-de-force presentation with summaries entitled:

-       The Treats or Opportunities presented by the Legal Services Bill

-       It’s never too early to – Plan your succession – Get out of the Office

-       Infamy, infamy – issues of morale and perception

-       Management, management, management

His message was very clear. Work ‘on the business’ as well as ‘in the business’, be objective, plan well ahead (10 years ahead for succession) and be bold. 

Follow that Warren!

Warren did indeed follow that. What followed was the Interactive Session where the group found out why they were now sitting around ten tables of ten people. Warren highlighted a couple of Key Considerations faced by firms and floated some pre-prepared ideas that could accrue from this. He then challenged each table to come up with their own formulation of one of these ideas. Each table elected a spokesperson to present their idea to the group. The outcome of this is a separate report that Warren is now working on and will be communicated to directly attendees. Warren then returned to questions he posed at the start of the day. Although his time he had some answers to accompany them:

We are certain that by this time all of the group were thinking clearly about how they could apply some of these to their businesses.

It was time to lighten the mood and Warren moved onto the Awards section of the day. LawWare are grateful to all our users and particularly those who help and assist us in developing our software, services and overall capability. In recognition of this we have established 4 categories of Award and this year these were supported by business partners. 

Cashier of the Year – Shirley Green of Boyle Shaughnessy.

    - Sponsored by Alchemist and BMC Solutions.

Most Progressive Firm of the Year – T C Young.

    - Sponsored by nFlow. 

Most Innovative Partner of the Year – Eric Lumsden of Sneddon Morrison.

    - Sponsored by The infinite Group.

Super User of the Year – Stuart McKay of James & George Collie.

    - Sponsored by Millar & Bryce. 

Warren Wander thanked the sponsors for their support and congratulated all the winners.

“Thank you all again for taking the time to be here today.
I hope you’ve all enjoyed it…

Remember, it’s you, the users who make LawWare what it is.
I look forward to see you all at next years UGM.”

There followed a break for the group to chat and for those who wanted to depart to do so. 

The day concluded with 2 demonstrations.

Estate Agency –

Firstly Simon Greig previewed the new Estate Agency module. He explained that database enhancements had been made to support Property records and Buyer Requirements records (Clients can be Buyers too). He had showed how a Property is automatically matched to Buyers and how a Buyer is automatically matched to Properties. From each of these displays the Buyers can be sent Property details either by post or by email (suggesting that email should be utilised whenever possible).  

CRM -

The last presentation of the day was by Paul McRobb of LawWare. Paul is an expert on using Enterprise/Express as a Client Relationship Management (CRM) tool. Paul showed how he can filter the Client database to display a particular subset that he can send a focussed marketing communication - either by post or by email. He also showed how the Strongroom can yield documents that are due for review and how easily he can produce a letter to go to these clients to prompt them to contact you for advice, and maybe create a potential business opportunity. [The text of Paul’s talk is available on request].

Click here to see a list of registered business partners in attendance.

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