By Legal Futures’ Associates DPS Software
Josiah Hincks are a Leicester based Law Firm who have been practicing since 1927 and have come on a long way since then, picking up the 2018 Leicestershire Law Society’s Small Law Firm of the Year. They originally opted to go for DPS Software’s Fully Integrated Package of Case Management & Legal Accounts (Outlook Office and Financial Director) back in 2016 after seeing the products demonstrated at a National Law Exhibition in London. They were impressed by the integrated Accounts system and the Precedents already in the system and marked DPS out as one of the top systems they saw on the day.
One of the challenges for a modern law firm is managing growth. In the time between 2016 and 2020, Josiah Hincks had grown from 3 branches up to 5 branches across Leicestershire. It was important for Operations Director, Stuart Wright, that the Law firm wasn’t spending its time managing its IT infrastructure when it could be better spending its time practicing law and serving its clients. This inspired the move to go hosted with DPS, so that all their solutions are under one roof and supported by DPS Software’s Support Teams.
“We had to ask the question, do we go cloud or upgrade our internal systems? The cloud came out on top for us. We did look at alternate Cloud solutions, whilst staying with DPS, which would have been a marked improvement from where we were. When we saw the integration with the DPS Case Management System and the IT Support, it was a no-brainer.
Stuart added, “We are not IT experts, we are a Law Firm and we gained confidence from the level of IT Support that was being offered, in addition to the security in the Cloud (DPS Azure) and GDPR compliance that came with being hosted by DPS”
Support from DPS
One key advantage of going hosted with DPS and having the DPS Case Management System in the Cloud is that in addition to the support they receive from a Relationship Manager and Client Services, they also have three lines of Technical Support in the UK who can deal with any issues that crop up whilst Fee Earners are working remotely quickly and efficiently.
“In terms of dealing with our remote provision, having an IT provider with multiple layers of solutions in terms of Technical Support, our previous supplier didn’t have”.
“This meant for a firm like ours where we are based across a range of offices, to have multiple support teams makes life a lot easier. The scale of our business meant that our old provider wasn’t in a position to provide the provisions that DPS are now able to”
Hosting mitigating the effect on Business of Covid-19
The Covid-19 Pandemic has caused disruption not only in the legal industry, but industries across the world. Whilst no one could prepare for such a global crisis, going hosted with DPS Cloud has meant that the transition to move all of Josiah Hincks staff to remote working has been quick and efficient.
“It has been incredibly easy; in the space of two days we moved all 50 staff to home working. It wasn’t stressful for us in the slightest, we just picked up and went home. The system is there to do it [remote working], the hard bit is getting the wi-fi dongles and transporting the hardware home.
We were hardly down at all, and interestingly, the end of March was one of our most successful months.”
The level of support experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic has stayed the same as well, with DPS Engineers ready to assist with getting hardware joined up to the hosted system so that Fee Earners could still print off their paperwork if they so wish.
“Bar setting up a couple of printers at home, we have had no other real issues, we’ve been able to concentrate on getting our jobs done, which is a key factor is why we chose DPS which is: We want to focus on what we are good at (Legal) and leave somebody else doing what they are good at – Which is DPS handling the IT”
A Modern Legal Practice
Josiah Hincks are an example of a Modern Law Firm in practice, able to continue their work from anywhere in the world with their Case Management & Legal Accounts all securely stored and accessible in the DPS Cloud. This is further supported by DPS Mobile, which allows users to access their File History, including documents and emails, add time and notes to a Matter, Dictate and view reports all from their mobile.
“When we went hosted, initially one-third of those who were dictating, used DPS Mobile, now one hundred percent of them use DPS Mobile”
“The reporting system and the detail within the system, not being Big Brother, but we can monitor effectively what is going on and what we are seeing is staff being more productive and progressing files very well [during this time]”
DPS provides a standard reporting package inside the Case Management System, in addition to provide ad-hoc queries and SSRS Reports which can be sent out to any member(s) of staff as a subscription service, so they receive reports as periodically as they like. In testing times such as these, being able to monitor the work that is being done and the cash flow with it, is important for keeping a Law firm running efficiently as this can be done with the DPS suite of reports.
Going hosted with DPS has proved to be a great decision for Josiah Hincks. All 50 of their users have been able to work from home at the drop of the hat, leaving their firms relatively unaffected when the COVID-19 crisis hit. But they’ve also benefitted from first class support and greater efficiencies from using the software in a hosted system.
If you’d like to discuss your firm going hosted with DPS, visit www.dpssoftware.co.uk
