Practice management makes perfect for Lane Neave

Background
With origins dating back to the 1860s, Lane Neave is a full service law firm offering a broad range of specialist legal solutions including corporate, commercial, resource management, insolvency and employment law. The recipient of the Concordia National Employment Law Award in 2007, Lane Neave has an extensive range of clients throughout New Zealand including State Owned Enterprises, corporates and individuals, serviced by a team of 100 staff.

Identifying the Need for Change
As one of the top 20 law firms in New Zealand, Lane Neave is focused on maintaining its long-standing reputation of delivering the highest quality service to its clients. Lane Neave’s lawyers spend significant time conducting legal research, analysing material relevant to a client’s matter and reviewing numerous documents each day. Working more effectively and managing daily workflow in a fast-paced, information-intensive environment is essential.

Lane Neave’s current practice management software provided a basic system for managing client information. However, it lacked sophistication and integration across Lane Neave’s business and did not facilitate sharing of legal knowledge amongst practitioners.

In 2005 Lane Neave decided that in order to keep providing high quality client results, employees needed a more sophisticated system for capturing, storing and retrieving documents and other communications with clients. There was also a lack of seamless integration between client financial information, workflow streams and practitioners’ time recording.

“Our current system was time consuming and inefficient - we knew there were better ways of managing and sharing information, supporting our practitioners’ workflows and being more integrated across our business” says Michelle Grant, Knowledge Manager - Lane Neave.

Ahead of the Game
After investigating numerous solutions for practice and document management, Lane Neave decided to be the first New Zealand firm to implement Lexis Affinity. Lexis Affinity is a new to the market, advanced software tool that integrates all the functions a legal professional uses each day, including email, document production, diary and accounting functions. It enables users to more easily manage workflows and administrative processes.

Initially developed in Australia but adopted in several countries across Asia, Lexis Affinity needed modifications to meet New Zealand regulatory and trust accounting requirements. In selecting Lexis Affinity, Lane Neave is working as a close partner with LexisNexis, to ensure that Lexis Affinity addresses the emerging needs of law firms in the New Zealand market.

“We see Lane Neave as a progressive law firm and were excited to lead the way in New Zealand in developing and implementing the Lexis Affinity solution” says Andrew Logie, Partner – Lane Neave.

Complementary Lexis Affinity functionality includes a client extranet, document management, client relationship management (CRM) and workflow which will also be adopted by Lane Neave ensuring an industry leading all round solution.

For Lane Neave, the adoption of Lexis Affinity is set to significantly increase efficiency in maintaining client data and records. It will provide practitioners with instant, centralised access to all archived and stored material from their desktops relating to a client and matter at the click of a button. Practitioners can conduct research, manage documents, organise their calendars and carry out file administration without accessing separate software applications or multiple locations.

An additional feature for clients will be the ability to access relevant client and matter financial information and documentation through the Lexis Affinity extranet function.

According to Andrew, a key driver for selecting Lexis Affinity was LexisNexis’ solid reputation in developing products and solutions for law firms. The Lexis Affinity solution is seen as one to “future proof” the firm’s ability to grow and sustain its strong reputation in delivering quality service to its clients.

“After meeting with LexisNexis, talking through our business needs and working towards developing a tailored solution, we knew this was the right decision for us. We view Lexis Affinity as providing a solution to help us work faster and more productively. The disadvantage of our previous system was that it did not encourage use by the entire firm. All practitioners, regardless of technical skills, will be able to use Lexis Affinity as it is very user friendly and additionally offers functionality that is of value to all areas of the firm, not just the accounts team,” said Andrew Logie.

Support will be provided by the LexisNexis team in New Zealand and through the helpline in the LexisNexis Practice Management Centre of Excellence.

Future Results
Implementation of the Lexis Affinity suite of products is in progress and is expected to be operational later this year.

“We are looking forward to the Lexis Affinity solution going live. It will transform our business because of its comprehensive practice management system and capability to work hand in hand with the operation of our business. We will have a single, integrated platform for our practice management that incorporates workflow, accounting and document needs. Lexis Affinity will improve the way we work, the way we interact with our clients and the efficiency with which we respond to our clients’ legal needs” says Meryll Waters, Chief Executive – Lane Neave.

Carlton Walker, Lane Neave’s newly appointed Business Development Manager, is also looking forward to the prospect of the Lexis Affinity solution incorporating a sophisticated client relationship management component which will enable Lane Neave to better service the particular needs of Lane Neave’s extensive client base.

Lane Neave believes the Lexis Affinity solution will play a key role in its future business success by allowing resources to be used even more effectively.

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