By Legal Futures’ Associates SOS
After having been in business for over 100 years, you would think it would be very difficult for Davis Blank Furniss to make substantial changes. Nevertheless, the company’s two offices and 60 employees have been able to seamlessly transition to working from home considering the present emergency. Despite everything, life and the courts do go on – and Davis Blank Furniss uses SOS Connect to excel as a full-service law firm no matter where they work.
Joanne Mercer, the Case Management System Developer at Davis Blank Furniss, takes us through her experience of working with SOS Legal and the benefits she sees as a result of using SOS Connect.
Project highlights: Making rapid pivots possible
- Makes it easy to work from home without losing ground on projects
- Easy to upgrade and add capabilities
- Works with other legal and productivity tools
- Amazing customer service
About Davis Blank Furniss
Davis Blank Furniss has existed as a medium-sized law firm since 1877. The firm has two offices – one in Manchester City and one in Glossop – and around sixty employees. They specialise in nearly every legal vertical except for criminal law, including conveyancing, PI, commercial litigation, business, corporate, family law, and more. The firm has been a Connect user since 2014 and has made the application available to all staff.
Helping Davis Blank Furniss work during lockdown
Joanne has been working with Davis Blank Furniss for 24 years – which means that she knows what life was like before SOS Connect. Practice management systems have improved considerably since she started working – but Connect is above the rest. Its easy integration with Outlook, with Microsoft Word, with solicitor’s accounts, and more means that it is possible to do most of the work of a legal firm without ever leaving the SOS mothership. At a time like this, that means multiple staff members can work on the same case using the same tools no matter where they happen to be, all while seamlessly keeping track of wider firm operations.
Connect has been vital to workers who are currently stuck in their homes. Without the ability to walk over to another person’s desk and check on their work, a centralised case management system is essential. What’s more, the company wouldn’t be able to provide good service for clients without it. Unless everyone has access to the same set of files, responding to urgent client requests becomes a longer and more uncertain process.
Getting upgrades done in an emergency
Davis Blank Furniss were looking for several ways to enhance their product further. One of their priorities included converting existing letterhead and billhead to PDF. Using Connect, they were able to do this on an emergency basis in about a week. All staff working from home can now create a document in Connect, convert it to use official letterhead, and then add a signature. This is essential in terms of preserving continuity of operation because it means that clients won’t perceive a difference in the level of service. More formally, it means that authorised individuals can obtain partner signatures for important correspondence without needing to see them in person.
While converting letterhead had been a priority for Davis Blank Furniss, it understandably didn’t move to the top of the list until quite recently. What impressed the company the most was how quickly SOS was able to understand this project as an urgent priority and offer their support. In ordinary times, this project would have taken up to three weeks – but SOS was able to help us go live with it in just two days.
Benefits from using SOS Connect
Apart from its benefits in the here-and-now, Connect has accrued many benefits for our firm over the years. It has streamlined our operations, made us more efficient and responsive, and helps us maintain compliance with the GDPR. SOS has always gone above and beyond to support our firm – even when there has not been an emergency – and that’s why we’ve stuck with them for the last six years.
