Smart Legal Case Management Software

Dashboard

Legal CM has an intuitive process-driven dashboard where you are alerted to any outstanding tasks requiring your attention. Items are shown per team and for the whole firm.

Buttons are removed from the dashboard once there is nothing to do.

Diaries

Legal CM provides Team, Fee Earner and User diaries. If users complete each day's tasks in the diary, then nothing will be missed, and all cases should be frequently progressed.

The diary tracks future, due today and overdue tasks, and is accessible from any area of the Legal CM system.

The schedule of tasks in the diary is fully configurable in your workflows. It is up to you to set a reasonable timeframe for a task to complete, after which it will become overdue.

Workflows

At the heart of Legal CM are process-driven workflows, which you can tailor to your firm. Workflows are tightly bound with the diary, prompting users to ensure tasks are completed in a timely fashion and that nothing is missed. Completing a task can cause another task to be added to the diary or trigger a range of other actions and activities.

Workflows are exposed to Clients in the Portal (for public tasks), so the Client is always fully aware of the progress of their case.

Workflows are split into "Admin", "Fee Earner" and "Post Completion" categories.

Chase Third Parties

Cases are often delayed by 3rd parties such as the Client, Estate Agent or Other Side's solicitor.

Setup "Client Action Required" messages for the Portal in your workflow. When those tasks become active in the diary the Client will be prompted in the Portal to complete those tasks. E.g., "We are awaiting your payment on account. Please contact the office to make your payment".

Setup "Email Chase" messages so that you can simply click an envelope next to an overdue task to prompt the 3rd party to complete the task. The task will automatically be moved on in the diary for you.

Case Progress Digests

Legal CM will send case progress emails at the end of each day.

receive recieve a detailed breakdown of any progress on their case during the day.

Introducers, brokers, and estate agents receive a single digest email summarising any activity on their ongoing cases during the day.

Combined with the Portal and Mobile Apps this feature greatly reduces the number if incoming calls requesting case status updates.

Case Delay Library

Create and maintain a library of standard reasons for why cases become delayed. For example: "We are waiting for the other side's solicitor to answer our enquiries" or "We are waiting for searches to be returned by the Local Authority. There is a backlog due to COVID".

When a task is delayed, then easily choose the delay reason from your pre-defined library. The Portal will be updated to reflect the reason.

You can also enter a custom delay if you need to.

Again, putting this information into the Portal for the Client to see will negate the need for them to call you to understand why their case is stalled.

Quotation Engine

Legal CM provides a quotation engine for conveyancing work-types, with a website plugin.

Quickly and easily generate fully priced conveyancing quotes to email to clients, or allow them to get Sale, Purchase, Re-mortgage or Transfer of Equity quotes directly through your website.

Create custom quotes or edit existing quotes. Convert instructions to matters.

The quotation engine supports cradle-to-grave processing, even automatically creating a new matter record and automatically merging client care letters and dispatching them to the client. It is fully customisable, allowing you to set the text of emails and control what does and does not happen automatically at the point of instruction.

Contacts Database

Legal CM has a fully featured and searchable contacts database with support for companies and individuals.

All changes to contacts are fully audited.

Support for recording identity verification is included.

Multiple telephone numbers and addresses are supported.

Contacts are fully searchable to avoid the creation of duplicates. If a duplicate contact is accidentally created, then contacts can be merged using a special utility.

Mail Merge

Mail merge to emails, PDF documents, PDF forms and Word documents.

Legal CM allows you to create your own letter templates which are mail-merged to create PDF documents. Headers and footers as fully customisable. A large and comprehensive dictionary of pre-defined merge-fields allow you access to large volumes of data, in addition to custom fields which you can define just for your firm.

Upload logos, signatures, and accreditations to Legal CM for use in your letters

Merge data into PDF forms such as Land Registry and Law Society forms.

Create documents in Microsoft Word and insert our merge tags. These can be merged into Word Documents or PDFs

Custom Forms

The custom forms feature of Legal CM is simple yet powerful, allowing you to create your own data-capture forms to be completed by staff or clients.

Forms are segmented into sections, and sections contain questions. Sections and questions can be shown or hidden based on the answers to other questions.

Single-line text, multi-line text, dates, whole numbers, decimal numbers, check boxes, check box lists, drop down lists and radio buttons are all supported.

Sections of forms can be made to repeat based on the answer to prior questions. For example, Q1. How many people are buying this property? Section 2 - "Client Details" would be repeated for the number of clients selected in Q1.

Sections of forms can be repeated in a tabular format, either according to a pre-defined list of qualifiers (e.g., a list of rooms) or according to a number given as an answer to a prior question.

This feature can be used to capture data for filling Land Registry or Law Society PDF forms in a user-friendly manner. Clients complete forms via the Portal in a mobile-friendly, "save as you go" format. You firm can review submitted forms before they are committed to the matter.

Document Signing

Legal CM has document signing built in. There is no reliance on third party document signing services (such as DocuSign). This means we can pass on significant cost savings to you.

Pack documents into envelopes, select signatories from the case, then send them for signing.

Documents pending signature are shown in the Portal. Capture names, dates and drawn signatures. All are date / time stamped and recorded in a full audit log at the end of the document. All the legal burden of proof is captured, even more so than with a wet signature.

Email Integration

Legal CM can fully integrate with your email system through IMAP and SMTP.

Mail is importable from your Sent / Inbox and Junk folders, depending on what you choose. Special tags in messages allow them to be automatically attached to the correct matter.

Compose and send mail with attachments directly from within Legal CM

Barcoding

Legal CM will automatically barcode your documents.

This means that if documents are returned to you in a reasonable condition (i.e., the barcode is not malformed, blurred or distorted in some way) then Legal CM will read the barcode and automatically re-attach the document to the correct matter.

The barcodes also provide a good audit trail as to the origin of a document.

Dropbox Integration

Legal CM integrates with Dropbox to automatically retrieve and import documents.

You can upload documents to Legal CM, but most auto-fed scanners support writing the scanned documents out to a specific folder on your PC. If you nominated the "Legal CM" Dropbox folder as that folder then you can scan and forget.

Legal CM will pick up the documents from your Dropbox folder and import them. If any case-identifying barcodes are detected, then those imported documents will be automatically attached to the correct case.

SDLT Submission

Legal CM is a recognised software product with the HMRC for submitting SDLT returns electronically.

Complete the SDLT form withing Legal CM, then submit it to HMRC. Providing everything is well, then print an SDLT 5 from Legal CM to give to your client.

Legal CM will automatically complete sections of the form for you based on data against the matter. It is, of course, your responsibility to check and complete the form correctly before final submission.

Portal & Mobile Apps

Legal CM provides a Portal (accessible through any web-browser) and Android and iPhone Apps.

Clients can see the progress of their matter at a glance, send your firm messages and documents, view case notes (where permitted by you), sign documents, complete forms, view documents and manage their password and two factor authentication. Provision is also made for identity verification through Credas ID.

Clients may only access the portal by your invitation, and after confirming their identity. For more details, see the Apps page.

Client Accounting

Many accounting packages do not make provision for client accounting. For this reason Legal CM has client accounting built in.

Client money is fully accounted for in Legal CM and backed up by evidenced bank reconciliations.

There is full support for journal adjustments, inter-account transfers and all the other features needed to keep track of client monies.

Chargeable Time

If your firm bills for time, then Legal CM has a built-in timer feature which keeps track of how long is spent on phone calls etc.

Time can be charged at rates of your choosing and in block of a nominated number of minutes, with a minimum charge.

All chargeable time is shown in Legal CM, ready for invoicing and inclusion on a completion statement.

Completion Statements

Legal CM produces detailed completion statements, which can be merged directly into your letters with a simple merge-tag.

All linked matters show on a completion statement, followed by a summary of the overall amount owning to the client, or owing to the firm.

Your completion statement is kick-started when a quote is instructed and then the instruction is converted to a matter. Charges from the quotation will automatically populate the completion statement.

Help & Support

Help is built into Legal CM. Click the (help) icon on any screen and detailed instructions will open to guide you.

We also provide detailed guides for certain aspects of Legal CM.

We are always available by phone to share a screen with you if you get stuck.

Legal CM is actively monitored for problems. If a problem is detected it is fixed with top priority. Likewise, should you report a bug it will be thoroughly investigated and promptly fixed.

Invoice Creation

As chargeable time and other invoiceable items are logged into Legal CM they are accumulated ready for invoicing.

You may raise your invoice through your accounts package and update Legal CM to mark those items as invoiced or use Legal CM to create the invoice.

The invoice is attached to the case as a PDF.

Certain aspects of the invoice format can be managed from settings.

Monitor Client Feedback

In this digital age, good reviews are the lifeblood of any company. Bad reviews are the death-knell. If you type "solicitor [your town name]" into Google, then somewhere near the top of the list local firms (including yours) will be listed. Commonly you will also see a star rating x/5 stars. Clicking this rating will bring up the details of what people have said about that firm. People are ever-increasingly checking these reviews before placing any business or choosing a local firm.

Legal CM constantly asks Clients and Introducers / Brokers for feedback. This is done in emails and in the client portal. It is a simple one-click Happy Face / Sad Face system. Sad Faces cannot be chosen without giving a reason.

This feedback is shown on the dashboard, along with a mechanism to follow it up. In this way unhappy Clients can be pacified quickly and problems can be solved promptly. All of this will hopefully contribute to a good review once the matter completes.

Archival Storage

Two months after a matter completes / is cancelled all documents will be archived to long-term storage in the Amazon and Microsoft cloud.

This data is stored encrypted at rest. You can retrieve these documents if you ever need them.

Audio Files

Occasionally you may need to store a recording of a phone call to Legal CM as evidence.

Each matter supports the upload of audio files to an audio library.

Case Export

You can export cases from Legal CM.

All matter data, logs, email, documents, and audio files are included and stored in a ZIP file.

Your Own Database

Legal CM keeps your data in your own isolated SQL Server database. This database is frequently backed up to secure, encrypted off-site storage.

And so much more...

Why not contact us and ask for a no-pressure demo? We feel that Legal CM sells itself. We can show your around the product and answer all your questions.

Legal CM is packed full of features to boost efficiency, improve connectivity, and give our firm a competitive edge.