For most law firms, case management (CM) software represents the key to managing their bread and butter work. Practices of all sizes have come to depend on the workflow inherent in these systems to compete effectively in today’s market for legal services. Many, if not most, corporate clients now expect firms to guarantee a fair degree of standardisation in the services they deliver, not least for bulk or commodity matters. The issues of quality assurance and quality management have now been taken up by the Law Society’s Lexcel initiative.
Lexcel aims to bring a semblance of uniformity to all kinds of legal advice and representation, to promote efficient delivery of these services and provide a benchmark for both firms and their clients. It is virtually impossible to gain Lexcel accreditation or undertake legal aid work without running some kind of legal CM software. While larger firms may be sufficiently comfortable with their client base to ignore the accreditation itself, many of their clients have long expected a degree of automation and electronic access to their matters in progress.
