The file at your fingertips

A small family firm in Hamilton has transformed its business model through its enthusiastic adoption of an integrated IT system – and all at a modest cost.

Two years ago Nicholas J Scullion & Co was an established firm with two partners, a staff of eight, but no computers that could connect with each other or with the outside world. Now its three partners and 24 staff all operate through networked time recording and case management systems, and are looking for new premises as their present office reaches maximum capacity.

It is often said that a law practice has to adopt a business mentality to survive nowadays. It may be no coincidence that the catalyst for change was the arrival from the world of business of the current managing partner Nicholas Jonathan Scullion, son of Nicholas James Scullion who founded the firm 27 years ago.

With an LLB and five years’ experience as a business development manager with Proctor & Gamble, followed by a commercial property traineeship in Glasgow, the younger Scullion came to the firm with a rather different outlook from that which had previously prevailed.

Time for reappraisal

“When I came here the office was really quite traditional in the sense that we had typists, we had secretaries… There was no networking between computers, no internet, no email, no server, it was just word processing, that was really it. All of our reports were ordered over the phone or by fax. The fax was by far and away the busiest machine in the office.

“We all took a decision quite quickly after I joined the office that we really needed to get with it in terms of IT and take advantage of changes in delivery of legal aid, ARTL, processing of court cases etc: we thought that when these developments come, we want to be ready. In addition we wanted to increase and improve the quality and volume of work that we were processing, and when you’re increasing that you need to look very carefully at two things: how do you retain or improve profitability if you’re doing new work, and how do you control it?”

Fast forward to today. After retaining the services of Glasgow-based technology broker Richard Scott, who suggested systems and budgets to suit the firm’s mindset early on, the firm has successfully combined two systems. First was LexisNexis Visualfiles, which  supports Transact Direct, a fully automated residential conveyancing package; and now LawWare, which supports all the firm’s transactions including the cash and time recording aspects.

“The way it works is that when a file is opened it is opened on LawWare, so we know which fee earner is responsible for it and how many files they’ve got live,” Scullion explains, “or how many cases they’ve got and what the fees are and how they spend their time etc. With conveyancing files, as well as being on LawWare for the financial side, the styles and letters and the day-to-day conveyancing are done by Visualfiles.” Fee notes and cash statements are all done automatically, the result being that in the whole office there are now only two part time secretaries; formerly there were more secretaries than fee earners.

Low budget, more feeing

Nor is the place crawling with IT people to run it all – just an administrator with a relevant Higher. And the switch in the balance of employees from support staff to fee earners has resulted in an impressive jump in profitability in only a year.

When Scullion claims that the whole project has been done on a very tight budget, less than £10,000, one’s eyebrows do tend to raise. But the conveyancing software is paid for at a fee per transaction – £25, which can be charged to the client – and the capital outlays were consultant’s fees, training, and the cost of installing the office network including the LawWare system. New computers and additional staff came from the increased fees.

Though all his staff now speak enthusiastically of their new work environment, it was not always thus. It took a lot of persuasion in some quarters before the old cash system was pensioned off – but with a lot of patience, help and training from the new suppliers, the transition was successful and again eliminated the office’s dependence on one person as a channel for transactions. The two existing partners were very enthusiastic supporters of the new systems and ensured their success.

Managed volume

How readily did the investment translate into new business? On the conveyancing front, “Very quickly it enabled us to greatly increase the number of transactions that we progress, because the partner then can see the allocation of work, and if somebody calls in without the person being there, you can look at the case and see what stage they’re at, without the physical file.” In addition, as the firm doesn’t do estate agency, doors have been opened with estate agents – who can also look online and see the status of their transactions. “Whereas before I would say I can’t take on that work because I’ve got nobody to do it and I don’t have the systems, now we get a lot of work from estate agents”, says Scullion. “Our client profile has expanded. As well as servicing repeat clients predominantly living in the Hamilton area, we now act for clients referred to us from estate agents in other towns. If a client does not have a solicitor, the estate agent will recommend that they use us. We now have the confidence to say we can handle this number of cases per month and so we’ve won a lot of business through having the system.”

Criminal work has been similarly streamlined. The firm is now involved with both LawWare and the Scottish Legal Aid Board in developing summary criminal modules, with templates for the more or less standard letters at the various stages of a case. “Where before we had a full time legal secretary doing criminal dictation, we now have a paralegal and she spends more time on actually doing the work, contacting the client, arranging the cover, making sure the statements are in, more useful work which solicitors would have had to do before.”

Competition lives

Scullion & Co is one small practice which claims to have no fears over the advent of “Tesco law”. “Bring it on!” Nicholas Scullion asserts. “We don’t have all our eggs in one basket here.” He believes his firm can offer a wider, and better, service at a competitive price.

“This business is a people business: whether you’re buying or selling a house, have a problem with the police, or are leasing premises for your business, it’s all about people. Even the corporate work we do, it’s small businesses, these are people who are making great sacrifices to come to us, and to everyone who makes that choice, you’ve got to say, thank you for giving us your business, because if you didn’t then we wouldn’t be here. So we like to think that we prepare all our team very well for whatever they go on to do, and as I said that’s because my background is in business development, customer service, not so much in law.”