PG Legal use Access Legal Proclaim case management to improve efficiency and report performance
- Improved efficiency through time recording, document storage and workflow capability
- Detailed reports support senior management to monitor case load and performance
- Embracing technology and reducing paper usage through the use of Access Legal Proclaim
PG Legal are a firm based in Gateshead in the North East of England, providing services both regionally and UK wide. The firm specialises in commercial areas of law including Commercial Conveyancing, Dispute Resolution, Employment, and Corporate matters and more recently expanding their offering to include personal legal services such as Residential Property and Wills and Probate.
Established in 2011, PG Legal has become renowned for providing an excellent, transparent customer experience. This commitment to making legal processes as simple as possible for clients, with fixed-fees wherever possible, has helped to build its the outstanding reputation.
We spoke to Managing Director, Jonathan Fletcher, who has over 25 years experience in the sector.
What are your goals and objectives as a firm?
“We’re aiming to grow the business, following a challenging couple of years, increasing our offerings to target SME clients and increase capacity in some of our less developed business areas, particularly personal legal services.
We want to embrace more technology and continue to reduce our paper consumption as a firm. While we’re far from a paperless firm at the moment, we have come a long way since we started and Access Legal Proclaim is helping us on that journey.”
How did you fair during the pandemic and did it change your thinking?
“The pandemic was a challenging time for everyone but, fortunately, we were able to work remotely and access the systems we needed to do our day-to-day jobs. The use of video technology was very important during this time, allowing us to progress cases and conduct client meetings effectively and efficiently. I actually think most clients preferred video meetings as they didn’t have to travel which saves a lot of time and money and allowed us to be more flexible and cost effective.
People have realised that you can have constructive face to face conversations on video calls, seamlessly, and the courts are now starting to adopt this technology. More recently, we’re starting to see more face to face court hearings take place however almost all of the preliminary hearings, building up to a trial, are continuing to be done remotely and I can’t see this going back to the way it was before.”
What led you to choosing Access Legal’s Case Management and Legal Accounts solution?
“I conducted an extensive review of the legal case management software market to understand the options that were available and, based on a number of criteria and following demonstrations, Access Legal Proclaim was my first choice. An additional factor was Access Legal Proclaim’s promotion in conjunction with The Law Society, which certainly enhanced its credibility as a legal software provider.”
How have you benefited from implementing the software?
“We were doing a lot of routine conveyancing transactions that were time consuming so we implemented Access Legal Proclaim to speed up this process and automate tasks within its pre-determined workflows.
The document storage capability has meant we’re less reliant on printing lots of documents and they can all be accessed from one central place, reducing paper costs and improving efficiency. The time recording and detailed reporting also allows us to track how long a fee earner is spending on a matter, bill accurately and assess profitability on individual matters or different types of work. I can also monitor the overall performance of the firm and individuals using the excellent reporting suite.”
How will the case management solution support your future plans and operations?
“Access Legal Proclaim has such a vast amount of functionality. We want to improve our knowledge internally of the conveyancing workflows to make sure we’re realising as much value from it as possible and look at other new and existing capability which can improve how we operate, e.g. the system has a great document bundling function which I have used but want to roll out across the team.”