Just over a year ago I set up Lawbridge Solicitors as a virtual firm after 21 years as a partner in a High Street practice. As the partner responsible for my former firm’s IT, I had been interested in the idea of a virtual law firm for some time. The increasing financial pressures on High Street firms, the likely changes to the legal landscape in the next few years and the increasing suitability of technology for a virtual practice, persuaded me that the time was right to take the plunge.
I was aware that some virtual law firms which had started out with high hopes a few years earlier were no longer around; but the model is not dead, as shown by the continued success of some virtual law firms. The advantages that virtual practices offer remain considerable. Costs can be much lower than for a firm with a full infrastructure which can make the business highly competitive. Working arrangements can be very flexible and you can cover more ground geographically.
There are disadvantages as well. The absence of a conventional office means that a different approach to practice development is required and management and compliance issues need to be carefully thought through.
How Lawbridge works
We have a serviced office in Folkestone, although our clients are based throughout London and the South East. The office is the firm’s address for post and service of documents and it gives us the use of a digital telephone system and additional photocopying facilities. It has proved useful in developing contacts with local businesses and provides conferencing facilities when we need them.
At the heart of Lawbridge is an internet-based practice management and case management system. We use Osprey.TM from Pracctice Limited and this has proved ideal for the purpose of creating a virtual working environment. It has also provided an excellent platform for the development of our online services. Those online services made possible by Osprey are case tracking, online legal audits and online documents, and they are intended to be a key feature in distinguishing the firm. These services make the firm more accessible to clients generally and are attractive particularly to IT-focused businesses and web savvy individuals.
Our online services
Case tracking. The management of case tracking is very straightforward. Documents and correspondence are made available to the client in a password protected part of the firm’s secure website. To enable this, the fee earner simply selects the documents to be uploaded to the secure website from the practice management system on an item by item basis as the case progresses.
Legal audits. We have so far developed five online legal audits, all in employment law. These are online questionnaires which are intended to assist businesses to identify the extent to which they are meeting their legal obligations in particular areas of the law. The user completes the questionnaire online and the answers are received back into the practice management system. We have detailed responses prepared in relation to all questions and we then configure these in response to the answers provided and send the client a full report.
Online documents. These are suites of documents configured for individual clients. Again, our focus has been on employment law which lends itself very well to this kind of document management with contracts, policies, procedures and templates for standard letters. The idea is to provide clients with a central source of documents which we can keep up to date for them. We can supplement the operational documents by adding our newsletters, client guides and similar materials so that the client has an informative and effective supply of documents in their area of our website.
The firm currently undertakes employment law, civil litigation, insolvency and commercial work (with a slant towards e-commerce). There is scope to develop our online services in each of these areas with online audits and suites of documents and online case tracking can be used for any type of work. We offer in-house seminars (all in employment law at the moment). We are contemplating delivering these online and again there is scope for development into other areas.
We have configured our website to provide different online fixed fee advice services and these have proved popular and easy to use. The requirement that the client pays on the website in advance ensures that we do not spend a lot of time doing unintended pro bono work and payments on account are also made online in ongoing cases which has the same benefit.
Support for fee earners
We have configured the practice management system to provide effective compliance by running short workflows at matter creation. These set up the Key Information Sheet, perform a money laundering risk assessment and client due diligence, run the conflict check and deal with client care. There is also a compliance questionnaire to be completed and a matter risk assessment. The information is easy for fee earners and managers to access.
We have developed two intranets for fee earners. One is administration based, providing online access to the firm’s office procedures manual, policies, training tutorials and other supporting information. The other affords online access to our knowledge management systems, including precedents, resources and links to relevant areas of law.
We use a variety of services which are ideal for virtual firms, including:
- remote telephone answering (www.moneypenny.co.uk)
- hosted email (www.osprey.tm)
- eFax (www.efax.com)
- Land Registry Direct (www.landreg.gov.uk/direct)
- online precedents from PLC (www.practicallaw.com)
- legal information services (various)
- digital typing services (various).
Plans to expand
We have had a good first year, supported by the majority of my existing clients, and have developed a number of new clients. We are ready to expand by taking on self-employed consultants with an established client following. This may suit people in a number of situations. We are primarily interested in solicitors undertaking work in our current areas of specialism or work of a commercial nature which is complementary to them. However, we are willing to talk to those practicing in other areas of law.
Consultants will need to provide their own working environment, consisting of a place to work, a computer, printer and high speed scanner together with a business telephone line and broadband connection. They will also be responsible for purchasing their own practicing certificates and CPD.
The development of the virtual firm into different areas of work and different locations should enable consultants to support one another and increase the range and specialism of legal services available. This should open opportunities for cross selling. In addition, the firm should be very competitive in terms of fee rates, given its relative efficiency and low costs base.
We will be able to cover for consultants who are on holiday and provide support during trials or other busy periods. We hope also that we will be able to develop a culture of meetings and social events to establish a strong community within the firm.
Michael Pope is principal of Lawbridge Solicitors. He has 24 years’ experience as a solicitor and for 21 years was a partner in Woolsey Morris & Kennedy in Sidcup.
