About our information technology
Despite the traditional nature of legal and financial services, we recognise the
importance of the internet and technology (IT) in today's society and the vital
role that it can play in helping us to deliver the best possible service to you,
our clients.
For that reason, we invest heavily in IT and look to properly exploit its many advantages
and opportunities in our day to day work. A lot of IT development takes place in
house and as such you can find details below regarding our current current projects.
Businesses looking for help or advice in the successful development and implementation
of IT based systems can contact our IT manager on 0844 858 3200 or email
jonathan.lynch@simpsonmillar.co.uk.
Our expertise
The Simpson Millar LLP IT team has considerable experience in the development of
IT systems which contributes greatly to the smooth, efficient and cost effectiveness
of our legal practice.
We have particular expertise in the field of:
- Microsoft Office products (Excel, Outlook, Word) and the integration of those applications
with the LawSoft product by Pilgrim
- case management development including the development of intelligent documents and
workflows - all areas which in the past have proven considerable obstacles to the
successful introduction of case management solutions within law firms
Our case management system - "SIMPIL"
We developed the "SIMPIL" case management system. For enquires on utilising this
product in your organisation please see below or contact: Jonathan Lynch.
SiMPIL is a case management system developed in house by our own staff. We originally
developed SiMPIL to help us with the progress of personal injury cases - hence the
name ("Simpson Millar Personal Injury Litigation"). However, we soon realised the
value of the system in all areas of our practice and we consequently adapted it
to work in any area of our business.
SiMPIL fully integrates with the LawSoft practice management product supplied by
Pilgrim Systems. We developed the application on the Microsoft .NET platform and
contains facilities for:
- Workflow
- Time recording
- Document production
- Document management
- Diary management facilities
SiMPIL dovetails seamlessly with the LawSoft product, sharing information relating
to stored documents and time recording, but provides a level of functionality over
and above that provided by the LawSoft product and which allows staff to carry out
complex tasks rapidly either as individual tasks or as a collection of tasks organised
into a workflow.
The system supports document production with the use of Intellicoms which also forms
part of SiMPIL and which allows us to embed intelligence within documents allowing
them to effectively customise or “write themselves” according to the information
either stored within the database or provided by the user at the time of document
production.
SiMPIL also offers compatibility with Oyez Forms and allows use of Intellicoms in
conjunction with those forms to create intelligent forms. By using Intellicoms and
the document production within SiMPIL, we can produce documents quickly, easily,
with minimum or no typing skills and with high levels of standardisation to ensure
quality and consistency.
The SiMPIL diary allows for prioritisation of tasks as well as facilitating team
working. The SiMPIL diary interface has similar features and the ease of use associated
with Outlook. We can link diary tasks to processes contained within workflow to
make it easy to complete the work associated with the diary task.
Our document scanning system
With the electronic revolution underway, our IT team developed "SIMPIL Document
Scanning" a solution that automatically checks scanned documents for case references
and, if it finds one, automatically saves the document to the SiMPIL/Pilgrim Lawsoft
system. Testing of this system is in progress, and we hope it will pave the way
for providing our clients with full on-line access to their documents 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week.
"Alexis"
"Alexis" is our in house enquiry management system. Designed to help us to deliver
a high level of service to potential clients that have not yet made the decision
to instruct us or where uncertainties lie as to whether we can help them. It provides
all the document production and diary management functionality of SiMPIL as well
as providing useful guidance for our staff on the information required to properly
identify whether we can help a potential client and, if so, on what basis.
"Alexis" can support a limitless array of enquiry types and currently handles:
- Accidents at work
- Asbestos related claims
- Clinical/Medical negligence enquiries
- Conveyancing
- General enquiries
- Legal helpline enquiries
- Road traffic accidents
- Wills
"Wills"
Faced with the challenge of delivering a very high volume of standard wills to members
of the Communication Workers' Union, our in house IT team developed a Wills creation
application to dovetail with the "Alexis" application described above.
The system allows us to input and store the information necessary for the creation
of the will in a database and uses intelligent documents to produce the standard
will. Using this approach, we can reduce the costs and time taken to produce a standard
will to the lowest possible level to enable us to deliver very large volumes of
standard wills at very competitive prices.
“People"
To help us to better manage our Human Resources during our current period of steady
growth, we have developed an in house HR management system "People".
"People" allows us to store all necessary HR information on every member of staff
electronically along with a complete electronic document file. It also provides
facilities to help us to better manage the training objectives of individuals and
to ensure that those training objectives get set in such a way as to properly contribute
to the overall training objectives of the business as a whole.
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