Autumn 2009

Page 1

Editor’s Viewby Warren Wander

I don’t know about you but I’m really busy. After suggesting that things might start picking up last quarter we have got busy all of a sudden; on all fronts as well - Development, Sales Enquiries and Training & Support. It just goes to show how quickly our world can change nowadays. I’m fairly sure we are still bumping along the bottom, with one month up and the next down, but I guess this is the nature of business now, so we have to adapt in order to make the best of any opportunities that come our way.

We introduced our ‘Helping you do more with what you’ve got’ programme and this has been well received with the pilot firms that we selected. Broadly speaking we now have a way in which we can measure the things you do you in LawWare and therefore work out the things that you don’t and focus on these in a visit. If you think you might not be using your system as well as you might – then let me know and we can schedule in some time to look at this with you.

To support our work with the ARTL project we are supporting the current round of Conveyancing Conferences jointly hosted by The Law Society of Scotland & Registers of Scotland. This is a new level of awareness building for us, so if you see any of us at these events do come and say hello.

Planning for the User Group Conference is in full swing now and another reason why things are so busy. Can I make the point that we are conscious that we have a variety of types of delegates, Partners, Cashiers and Practice Managers.

I really enjoy the conference as it is the time when I get to meet our clients, new and old friends, and can catch up with you and your news.

As always; if you wish to contact me please drop me an email warren@lawware.co.uk

User Group Meetingby Warren Wander

The highlight event of the year at LawWare is our annual conference and user group meeting.

This year’s event is just under 4 weeks way and is scheduled for Wednesday 11th November at the Stirling Management Centre.

This year’s event differs in that we have decided to invite a selection of our best business partners (accountants, consultants, IT suppliers) to join in and I am sure that they will add value to the day in many ways.

We have already had an terrific response and are expecting in excess of 100 attendees with around 78 user delegates (from 55 firms) and 30 business partners from 21 firms; there’s still spaces if you haven’t booked.

The agenda is in the process of being finalised and everyone who has registered for the event will receive this in the next few weeks. It’s not too late to register, if you want to drop me an email warren@lawware.co.uk

The day is themed on “Helping you do more with what you have”. We hope also to give you an insight into our current strategies, the direction of LawWare and to preview some of the innovative technologies that we have developed in LawWare Enterprise.

The morning will be dedicated to a series of guest speaker who will be covering Business Change & Development, Risk Compliance & Cashroom, Productivity & Matter Management, IT Support Panel.

This will be followed by a private user group meeting, giving you the opportunity to hear about other users experiences and talk directly to the LawWare Team. Business partners will have a separate stream.

The afternoon will encompass an interactive session followed by closing statements and an optional demonstration of our Estate Agency Module.

I do look forward to seeing you on the day…

Autumn 2009

Page 2

Conveyancing Conference reportby Simon Greig

I recently attended a Conveyancing Conference run by Registers of Scotland and Law Society of Scotland. LawWare were invited to support the event due to our work with RoS on the ARTL interface between LawWare Enterprise and the ARTL system. This is live now and was featured in the Summer 2009 Newsletter, further information is on our website or email me.

The speakers were all very impressive and informative and the delegates were well catered for. The stand out talk for me though wasn’t either RoS or LSoS, nor indeed Jane Irvine of SLCC, but instead poor Detective Constable Scott Telford of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA). I say poor DC Telford – because he got quite a hard time from the audience. The subject of his talk was ‘Anti-Money Laundering and fraud’ and he started off very well, commenting on the accepted fact that 99.9% of law firms clients were nice, normal, law abiding people and asking that we also understand that 99.9% of his clients weren’t. His main message though was in relation to the extent of the average firm’s Client ID Verification procedures, or rather the lack of such procedures. He feels that there are too many firms relying solely on the Primary and Secondary evidence tick-box approach. He got a hard time from the floor when asked ‘how can somebody’s driving licence be checked?’ and he responded with what can only be described as waffle, however his principal view is one that I hear more and more. The former Chief Accountant of the Law Society of Scotland has evidence that current audits of firms are failing on precisely this point. One of our own clients has recently had a similar experience.

LawWare will be making a major announcement at the User Group Meeting that has direct relevance in this area. We are trying to line up Leslie Cumming to speak about his experiences as his organisation (The Cash Room) are at the forefront of cashroom IT and it is your cashroom that seem to bear the brunt of this. This should be an interesting discussion.

Jane Irvine did have one interesting point to make – if you haven’t already done so, then your Terms of Engagement letters should be amended to tell your clients about the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission as the people to consult, rather than the Law Society. I’ve asked around recently – she has a point. She added that when receiving a complaint you have to tell your client about them then, as well.

New Policy – Software ReleasesAs a consequence of both adding more clients and more features within our software modules we have decided to re-structure the frequency of software releases. These will now be issued quarterly. Consequently there will be fewer release numbers in future although there will be more new features and therefore much more information regarding the content of new features in each new release. It may take a little while to work through the ‘What’s new’ page but we can guarantee that there’s something for everyone in this one.

Development HighlightKPI Notification Trend Indicators

This is a little known but very useful facility when looking at your KPI indicators. You may have ‘Inactive Case Files for more then 60 days’ reporting 25, but is this total increasing, decreasing or staying the same. Either way it tells you something about how well you are dealing with this. The same is true of ‘Fees Outstanding’ and ‘Fees Recovered’, and ‘Work In Progress’.

Other aspects can be analysed as well - ‘Clients awaiting money laundering’, the ‘Number of active matters’, ‘New Clients added’ and ‘New files added’ are important metrics to know but if the trend is up or down does focus the mind on the current direction of this aspect as well as its status.

This is one of the enhancements included in the last release of LawWare Enterprise in the management information and risk management capabilities that are already in your installed version, so take the time to switch these on (call the Support Desk if needed) and make better use of what you already have.

ARTL UpdateThe new release of the ARTL system now supports both Purchasing Agent and Selling Agent being from the same firm.

Autumn 2009

Page 3

Latest Software Release NotesLawWare Enterprise –

NEW Release No.: 4.10.074 Latest Developments:-

*** NEW INTEGRATION MODULE - Online Identity Verification (4.10.074) LawWare has partnered with a leading online identity verification provider www.uru.co.uk  The alliance enhances the LawWare Enterprise Money Laundering & Risk Assessment suite.  The new module offers integration to URU's web service so new clients can be verified.  In order to use the service, you must sign up with the provider and we have negotiated preferential per search

rates for all LawWare users. Please contact LawWare if you are interested in this service.

email Enhancements (4.10.074)

o Improved Integration with Outlook

The underlying connectivity code between LawWare and outlook has been enhanced to improve performance and integration facilities.

o New Buttons in your Outlook Email

You can now copy an email into LawWare directly from Outlook through a series of new buttons that have been added to the email screen in Outlook enabling Copy to LawWare & Move to LawWare directly (an alternative to drag & drop). You can also Open the Original Activity or Case File for existing emails already created.

o De-duplication

A new facility has been added whereby LawWare checks emails that are copied to LawWare to see if another user has already copied that email. 

If the email exists, a notification will alert you and you are given the choice to continue or stop the copy.

This new feature avoids multiple copies of potentially large emails with attachments being stored on the server.

SMS Text Message from LawWare (4.10.074) The text message capability from LawWare has been enhanced to simplify the configuration and registration

process when signing up with a partnering service provider (TextAnywhere). Simply click here to Register   online for text services Performance Improvements (4.10.074) An optimisation task has been progressed to improve performance on a number of key database queries. Handling of network disconnections (caused by temperamental Windows or equipment connectivity such as

cabling, network card or router issues, or power saving sleep mode causing network card disconnection) and timeouts handling, have been improved to help LawWare attempt to auto-reconnect to the SQL database on the server where possible. This will reduce the number of instances where LawWare shuts down when network connectivity drops.

A new fast search capability has been developed for the main screen. This can be activated on request.

Risk Assessment Enhancement - 50% threshold (4.10.074) The risk assessment threshold % is now configurable from the administration centre (Settings Section)

Accounts Posting Screen (4.10.074) The Branch Office selector at posting time has been changed to pick up first the case file designated branch. In

absence of this then the user designated Branch, in absence of this, the main head office. [prior to this change, it always selected the user branch]

The accounts posting screens have had an overhaul to optimise performance (unbind).

Autumn 2009

Page 4

Latest Software Release Notes continued Banking Checks - Overdraft limit Warning (4.10.074) You can set an overdraft limit on any bank account from its properties screen. Once set, the Queue processing

code will warn if the bank exceeds its limit as a result of committing the transactions. You will be given the choice of continuing or rolling the queue back if a limit is exceeded. The bank list screen will also highlight overdrawn accounts in red.

Time Recording Date - Message at Startup (4.10.074) A notice has been added at startup warning you if your time recording date is not set to today. The message

gives you the option to reset this to today's date, Terms of business - On screen - Security Permission (4.10.074) A security permission has been added to restrict user permission to be able to mark the terms of business letter

as being sent on a case file. See the case file screen for access to this tick box. Cashroom Notification - Consolidated Credit Balances (4.10.074) An additional notification is available to show Consolidated Credit Balances over £500 [£x] (for clients with

multiple matters, balances can be consolidated). Cashroom Notification - Client Payment Memoranda Entries (4.10.074) An additional notification is available to show client ledger payment memoranda entries with a facility to be able

to convert this to an actual payment directly from the notification detail screen. Combined Cash Statement over Multiple Matters (4.10.073) A feature has been added to the client ledger cash statement facility to enable the production of a combined cash

statement over multiple matter ledgers. The Cash statement screen now has a "Combine" tab giving you the option to combine additional ledgers. 

This is particularly useful when you want to send the client a single statement over multiple work types such as if you are doing the Estate Agency and the Conveyancing for a property, or, a Sale and a Purchase in separate case files.

The Cash Statement layout has also been improved to include additional header line spacing with a format improvement so that the header block only shows on the first page rather than on each page.

Case File Maintenance - Auto (Block) Archive facility (4.10.073) A new database maintenance facility has been added (to the File Menu and the Year End routine) that will scan

the matters database and check for case files over a number of years old (5 yr default) that satisfy the archiving criteria shown on screen. 

Matching files will be archived in a block automatically by LawWare.  An auto archive activity is written to each case file's Activity history. Access to this procedure is subject to security permissions being set for your user profile. The procedure will prompt on completion of each year end to help ensure your data is cleansed. Risk Assessment (CDD) Enhancement (4.10.073) The risk assessment questionnaire now includes a work type specific option applicable at matter level. Matter specific Risk Assessment Questions (that are customised from the Administration centre) now have an

additional indicator to identify whether they are specific to a certain work type. At Matter level, when completing the Risk Assessment Questionnaire, there is an additional drop down box to

select which work type the questions relate to. This will filter down the questions for more targeted relevance. If this is a new case file that is being created, the questions will take on the work type selected.

Additional Main Screen View - Everybody (4.10.073) An additional main screen view has been added to show "everybody" so that all Clients, Contacts, Prospects,

Buyers etc... can be viewed from one place. This makes searching and mailshots simpler and more concise. Note that this view excludes the firm's staff to ensure system security.

LawWare Classic – Current Release No.: 3.7 build 0108.156