A law firm that makes life simple for clients

November 19, 2009

A law firm that makes life simple for clients

As a lawyer, have you ever wondered how your clients would describe you? Would they say you're client-focused? Commercial? Concise? Cost-effective?

If not, you might be interested in Australian Business Lawyers. Lawyers Weekly has an article on how the Sydney-based firm has built a successful workplace law practice over the past 10 years by making life simple for its clients. So, how has ABL done it?

One way has been by ensuring that written advice is as straightforward as possible. Many firms aspire to write in Plain English. ABL actually does.

Another way has been by providing clients, most of whom are HR professionals, with access to HR Advance, the firm's online documents service. ABL created HR Advance by combining its deep employment law expertise with Exari's document assembly platform. The Lawyer's Weekly article explains:

[HR Advance is] a toolkit of HR documents which HR professionals can use to generate workplace-related documents online via sets of simple questionnaires. According to [Managing Partner, Tim] Capelin, the toolkit recognises that certain areas of workplace law are essentially becoming commodities, and while most law firms will attempt to produce consulting services around such areas, ABL believe the process can be much cheaper and simpler.

Thousands of subscribers pay a subscription fee which the firm says is usually less than what it would cost for one consultation session with a law firm. The product won an award for IT innovation in law in 2007.

All firms claim to be client-focused. ABL is one of the few that has actually done something about it by developing an offering tailored to its clients' needs.

To learn more about ABL's use of Exari for HR Advance click here.

Do you know of other firms that are reinventing the way legal services are provided? If so, let us know in the comments below. We'd love to hear about it.

3 comments:

Margaret Burrell, Annesley Business Consulting LtdNov 20, 2009 10:35 AM
"So written advices should never be seen as something that will be framed as a showcase of the intellectual abilities [of the lawyer] but, rather, they are meant to resolve the issue for the consumer of the legal services."

This is one of the comments in the Article you refer to, and is so true! Unfortunately, many lawyers have no experience of the 'real' world and seem UNABLE to distil information down into something which the client can understand.

This may, however, be partly due to the approach taken.

As a former in-house lawyer in industry, I have always understood that contracts should be approached from the business perspective first and the legal perspective second.

A good contract reflects the business needs of the clients within the context of the degrees of protection and risk they are comfortable with. If, instead, it is drafted as a legal straight-jacket which prevents the parties from doing business effectively, it is likely - if understood - to simply be ignored.

My aim is always to draft documents which prevent disputes rather than ones which only focus upon remedies - ie on preserving the business relationship rather than ruining it - and this always means writing them in plain English!

How widely is your system used in the UK?
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Andrew DavisNov 22, 2009 02:23 PM
Hi Margaret,

I agree that a major reason for the poor drafting of many lawyers is their lack of 'real' world experience.

Another problem is their risk-averse nature (or training); too much emphasis is placed on trying to protect against all eventualities (no matter how improbable), rather than looking at opportunities for strengthening the business relationship.

In terms of Exari in the UK, it's used across a number of industries, the most common being: insurance, banking, and law firms. Let me know if you would like to speak with someone from our London office.
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HR Documents for Law FirmsFeb 9, 2011 07:21 AM
This kind of software is becoming more common. It can be a real time saver for law firms and allows them to allocate their time to more pressing tasks. It is an excellent kind of resource.
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