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Merging law firms with merging technology

January 12, 2012

It’s hardly surprising that given the current ‘threats’ to the legal sector that many firms are considering mergers as a way of future business development.  Andrew Otterburn’s survey reported on in the Law Society Gazette confirms that the sector will remain active, and perhaps rumours of collective demise are rather exaggerated.

There are however plenty of opportunities out there for those seeking to join forces and take their businesses in a different direction, and if it is by merger, we all know that it may not all be a bed of roses once the ink has dried, but one thing can be made smoother.  Taking the opportunity to merge and upgrade a core technology, such as Microsoft Office, and re-brand templates and precedents needn’t be a painful process. 

Templates in Microsoft Word are one of the most important productivity tools that exist in law firms.  They appear as documents and precedents and they interact with case management and CRM systems.  At a very basic level they provide the layout of faxes, agreements and letters.  More often lawyers rely on long, heavily structured and numbered documents containing codes, headings and styles which are customised for each firm.

In firms that are merging there will be different styles of templates, both in formatting and construction.  The number of documents could run into thousands.  

Templates are at the very core of functionality that makes Word so important and therefore their effective management is a must for every forward-looking legal IT manager. 

Document Direct has the technical know-how, capacity and resource to reformat and rebrand thousands of templates and can provide finished products in tight deadlines. Working in Office 2010 Document Direct can rebuild and rebrand templates, whether as a result of a migration to Word 2010 or a merger of two firms’ styles.

If you want more information contact Jayne Smith on 0151 227 9150/07976 852 359 or visit our contact page.

Posted by Jayne Smith | Filed Under Services for Law Firms | Leave a Comment 

7 Headaches cured

September 7, 2009

Outsource Typing Case StudyWhat causes stress and disruption to your business operation? I’ve come up with a list of headaches commonly found in all businesses at some point. Are you in pain now when you don’t have to be?

1. WHO’S COVERING THE SICKNESS AND HOLIDAYS?
The holiday season (or the flu season) can be massively disrupting to your business if you don’t have skilled temporary staff to call on. If you work in a quieter rural area then chances are you will struggle finding a temp who’s available when you need them. And once you’ve got them trained up on your systems (often about 2 days) then it’s time for them to move on. You’ve probably wasted half a week of your time training the temp and you’re still left with a backlog of work by the time your usual secretary arrives back. Some larger firms don’t even use temps. They hire an additional secretary to provide the year round cover they need. What an expense! Your outsourcing company doesn’t require you to send a minimum amount of work or sign up for a specific contract period so you can make use of the service just when you need to. PAIN RELIEF CAN BE FOUND HERE

2. A BACKLOG OF WORK
If your dictation is taking 2 days to turn around then you have a backlog. And it’s costing you money. Files are not up to date leaving you at risk of negligence and, let’s face it, the faster you can work through the files, the faster cases are settled, and you get paid quicker. Why put up with it? PAIN RELIEF CAN BE FOUND HERE

3. NOT ENOUGH INTERNAL RESOURCES FOR A ONE OFF JOB
Dealing with an unusual heavy workload with limited resources can cause backlogs to your usual workflow. You need to have a database typed, perhaps a lenthy document which can take a secretary 2 days to reproduce, or lots of recordings but it’s too much for one secretary and you need it quickly. Making use of a team of outsourced secretaries for those one off jobs is a very cost effective way of keeping up to date with your workload. Document Direct has hundreds of registered secretaries and it’s a straight forward process for us to manage “bulk” transcription/copy typing and return it to you in the fastest time (usually the same day). PAIN RELIEF CAN BE FOUND HERE

4. ASKING PEOPLE TO WORK OVERTIME - AND PAYING THEM!
Managing people and overtime rates for “out of hours” work can leave you exasperated. There’s a reason why you need to work late in the night or at weekends — because you’re busy and have to deliver a quality service to your clients. So your staff should be helping you, not hindering you and making your job harder. But not everybody wants to work late, earn overtime and have their weekends disrupted. Document Direct’s outsource typing service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We’re non-threatening to your existing staff, we simply wait in the background for the day that you need to use us. PAIN RELIEF CAN BE FOUND HERE

5. RECRUITMENT, TRAINING AND RETAINING
Would you rather recruit a fee earner or a secretary? If we unravel the job specification and look at each task that we ask our employees to do and look at specific processes, it’s possible to see just how easy it is to take the typing part of a secretary’s job and outsource it. Once that’s done, putting your resources (people) to better use is easier. Secretaries are no longer just “typists”. They’re asked to be personal assistants, office manager and unqualified fee earners. Quite frankly, they’re too expensive to type. PAIN RELIEF CAN BE FOUND HERE

6. FINDING SKILLED STAFF
Love it or hate it, but none of us can live without it. Technology. It’s the most rapid changing industry and it affects us all. So when it comes to finding a secretary who has the skills to keep up to date with the last versions of software it can cause huge headaches. After all, unless you already employ an expert who knows what skills to recruit, how do you know what questions to ask? At least with outsourcing your documentation you’re assured that you can keep up with your competitors and work on their documents with the most up to date word processing techniques. Poor word processing and presentation of your documents to a competitor firm says a lot about the skillset of your workforce and speaks volumes. PAIN RELIEF CAN BE FOUND HERE

7. TOO MUCH WORK AND NOT ENOUGH HOURS
If you need more time why waste time travelling to the office? Why not work from home or on the train while commuting? Using a digital dictation system will give you valuable hours when you realise you don’t have to travel to the office to send work to your secretary. In fact, you can be anywhere and send your work from a mobile phone. And you can send your work at any time of the day when you’re accessing a 24/7 remote service. Would that give you the flexibility you need to use your time more effectively? PAIN RELIEF CAN BE FOUND HERE

So would you like to have one or two headaches removed? Ask for our Free Trial and give yourself some pain relief. 

Posted by Jayne Smith | Filed Under Digital Dictation for Business, Digital Dictation for Lawyers, General, digital dictation for solicitors | Leave a Comment 

Microsoft Office training is now more important than ever

April 27, 2008

Remote working, from home or office,  wherever that may be, is great for concentration, flexibility, comfort, time and costs.  More and more people are taking advantage of how modern technology helps us achieve all of the above.  But there can be a disadvantage to working alone too, and not one that’s easily spotted until you find you have a difficulty: the lack of help from other humans around you.  How many times in the past have you just shouted “can anyone help …”; or “I’ve got a problem with …” 

When you’re working alone, whether self employed or not, to have the correct training, knowledge and resources are an invaluable tool to help you get your job done.

Document Direct is helping more and more businesses with designing templates, creating banks of precedents, calculating Excel spreadsheets and designing PowerPoint slideshows.  Our documents contain automatic cross-referencing, automatic tables of contents and other advanced word processing features.  Our ongoing training ensures our skills are up to date to get the most from our techonology and you can too. 

Microsoft Certificate Application Specialist (MCAS) is the qualification to have which will give you the skills needed to manage your remote office and it has never been easier to learn now that the whole course, libraries and exams are available online.  Having an indepth knowledge of Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint will mean you’ll never have to hold up your hand and ask for help, in fact, others might end up calling you!

If you’re interested in having more skills and knowledge about Microsoft Office then give us a call or email (you might even get a discount).

  

Posted by Jayne Smith | Filed Under Training | Leave a Comment