Thirteen-partner commercial firm Rakisons has splashed out £750,000 on a complete overhaul of its IT infrastructure.
As part of the revamp, which has coincided with Rakisons' relocation to Linklaters' old City offices at Clements House, the firm has introduced a Microsoft NT server network, laptop computers for its 32 fee earners and desktop PCs for all support staff.
The firm has also rolled out the Microsoft Office 97 suite of products, including Microsoft Word, and the PC Docs document management system.
The final part of the overhaul was completed recently when the firm replaced its Qdos practice management system from Sanderson with Resolution System's FirmWare product. Browne Jacobson, the 33-partner Nottingham-based firm, has also installed the FirmWare system in the past month.
Following the implementation of FirmWare, Rakisons has made it compulsory for fee earners to record their working time on the new system.
Jonathan Polin, the partner responsible for IT at Rakisons, said: "The involvement of fee earners and partners in online time recording and billing has improved the accuracy of data capture and produced an immediate financial return."
According to Rakisons practice manager Jill Spicer, who is responsible for IT, her firm is only part of the way through its implementation of FirmWare. "The next objective is to let fee earners access the back office information which is recorded on the system directly from their desktops," she said.
Spicer said the IT overhaul was a radical departure for her firm. "We were previously using WordPerfect for DOS," she said. "And while Qdos was a good practice management system, it was 14 years old and wasn't ever going to integrate with our front office.
"We really wanted a client server product. We are a forward thinking commercial firm that competes with the big City firms, and our IT strategy needs to reflect that. We must show our clients that we have a good IT system. Many of them are major telecoms and IT suppliers, so they expect it."
Rakisons has also introduced the Microsoft Outlook integrated
e-mail and calendar manager and Voicemail Express from AVT. The two systems provide a universal
in-box for Rakisons' staff, which gives them a single location where all e-mails, faxes and telephone messages are sent.
The software can convert voice messages into text and text messages into voice, allowing users to access their in-box through an
e-mail connection on a computer or via a telephone. Linklaters is currently investigating a similar package.
Spicer said the system was not perfect but worked sufficiently well to be useful to lawyers.