LexisNexis Enterprise Solutions, a leading provider of content and technology solutions and Legal Futures Associate, has announced that Essex Legal Services, Essex County Council’s legal services department, has extended the use of case and matter management solution LexisNexis Visualfiles as the technology platform for the Public Law Partnership, a shared legal services initiative.
Currently rolling out to members of the Public Law Partnership, Visualfiles is being made available to a number of legal practices, including those of the relatively small district councils, which otherwise would have individually incurred technology overhead and management costs to use the solution. Essex Legal Services will host and manage the solution.
“In the current austere times, we are devising innovative ways of working to maximise resources, increase efficiency and enhance front line services,” says Debbie Paget, practice manager at Essex Legal Services. “As a long-standing user of Visualfiles, we are well versed with the capability of the solution. It automates and streamlines business processes, provides in-built checks to ensure that deadlines are not overlooked, facilitates best practice and ensures that governance and quality standards are met.
“These capabilities are essential for the smooth running and management of a collaborative initiative the size of the Public Law Partnership. The solution can be easily scaled to meet future business requirements and is easy to learn. It made business sense to make Visualfiles the technology platform for many members of this shared services initiative.”
Visualfiles enables the Public Law Partnership to maximise its legal resources. Driving the Public Law Partnership via Visualfiles, Essex Legal Services can identify latent capacity and ensure that people with the right skills are working on every matter. The department has reduced the need to outsource work to the private sector, which has contributed significantly towards cost savings.
Visualfiles has greatly improved Essex Legal Services’ ability to access and analyse management data pertaining to the Public Law Partnership. The department can easily generate in-depth monthly reports that highlight information such as the number and types of active cases in each specialty area, the districts that are working together and on which specific projects, duplication of work, the level of fee-earners working on cases, the case load of individual fee-earners, and what better resource utilisation options exist.
“With budget cuts becoming the norm in the public sector, organisations must fully leverage technology as a means to conduct business effectively and efficiently. Essex Legal Services is a great example of how legal services departments across councils and boroughs can form formal arrangements for shared services to meet key performance indicators without compromising on quality of service,” says Tim Cheadle, general manager of LexisNexis Enterprise Solutions.
LexisNexis Visualfiles is a case and matter management solution that integrates and streamlines multiple applications including e-mail, document and records management, document scanning, customer relationship management and finance in a single system.
The system also provides a range of additional components to enhance the software’s functionality including operational risk management, compliance, online access, scanning, integrated know-how and dynamic performance dashboards. Visualfiles is delivered inside Microsoft Outlook for ease of use.
