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GAZ E T TE
APRIL. 1984
Automation — The Society's
Computer Working Party
by
David Beattie, Solicitor
T
HE growing awareness in the profession at large of
the profusion of electronic accounting aids now
available in the market-place for solicitors gives rise to a
range of problems almost as large as the numb er of
machines themselves. Large firms of solicitors are of
sufficient scale to justify the appointment of independent
c o n s u l t a n t s, r e p o r t i ng directly to an individual
partnership on selection and implementation of computer
systems. However, it is difficult to find consultants who
are truly independent. Medium and small offices will, in
any event, find it difficult to justify the cost of engaging a
consultant and will generally be forced to take
uneducated decisions on computerisation. The rate of
change in the world of computers is such that it is very
easy to sit back and wait to see what new machine appears
next year. This can be a mistake, as experience to date
shows that there will never be a perfect time to buy.
Taking a "wait and see" attitude may merely postpone
the time for starting to grapple with new technology and
the implementation of more efficient office procedures to
benefit partners, staff and clients of a practice.
Computerisation has potential advantages in cost control
and availability of management information to an office
which is too big for the managing partner to retain a
constant grasp of all financial information. This is
matched, however, by the potential disadvantages which
may arise from making a wrong decision on computerisa-
tion, which can result in hundreds of hours of otherwise
potentially chargeable time going unbilled, or being
wasted in trying to retrieve the situation.
Ad hoc Committee established
Aware of these factors, a number of practitioners in
medium to large sized offices in Dublin met together on
an
ad hoc
basis in 1981, to try to pool resources in seeking
advice on the area of computerising accounts and time
records. They soon realised that there were numbers of
their colleagues in smaller offices who were also interested
in the topic. Accordingly the Council of the Law Society
was asked to appoint an
ad hoc
committee to investigate
the position with regard to the supply of computerised
accounting and time recording systems in the Republic
and to make recommendations as to the most suitable
systems. The Committee was chaired by Rory O ' Donn e ll
and its other members were J o hn Buckley, Joseph
Du n d on and Charles Meredith. The Committee decided
to appoint a Consultant to carry out the investigation and
System Dynamics Limited was appointed Consultant. A
working party was established to liaise with the
Consultant, consisting of Messrs. Rory O ' Donn e l l, J o hn
Buckley, Terence Liston, Kieran Murphy, David Beattie
and Bart Moon ey assisted by Brendan Doherty of System
Dynamics Limited. The Consultant's brief was to
examine all the systems currently on the market capable
of running Solicitors' accounts and time recording and to
produce a report on them. The Consultants' fees were to
be met by a levy on all interested firms, pitched at two
levels — larger firms (which were deemed to be firms with
six or more fee earners, each contributed £500 and smaller
firms each contributed £100). Unfortunately the sum
originally collected did not meet the likely fees of the
consultants and the Law Society was persuaded to make
up any shortfall on the basis that they would be
reimbursed out of any sum subsequently collected.
These financial considerations caused a considerable
delay, but eventually the Committee met in 1982 and
decided to approach every computer manufacturer or
software house advertising or p r omo t i ng its products for
the solicitors' profession in this country to ask them to put
forward a submission or proposal for computerising two
specimen offices. Information on the volume of work
in the offices represented on the working party was
obtained by ascertaining the number of clients with live
cases, the total numb er of cases in the office which were
live, the typical numb er of book-keeping entries for each
case and typical duration of each case. From this
information a detailed set of requirements was drawn up
for a typical small office based on approximately one
hundred clients and two hundred to three hundred
matters and for a larger office with a sub-office having
from twenty to thirty fee earners and five thousand
matters. This information was sent to all the companies
active in the market and an advertisement was placed in
Irish Computer Weekly,
so that every supplier would be
on notice of the study and have an opportunity of parti-
cipating. With one or two exceptions, the replies were
extremely slow in coming in and in order to vet these it
was decided that no supplier would be considered who
could not show a track record for his system. Any supplier
who could show their system operating in a solicitor's
practice in this country with a satisfied user or a number
of such systems operating in the UK was considered.
Solicitors' firms were approached directly to investigate
their experiences and level of satisfaction with their
suppliers and the Commi t t ee is most grateful for the
assistance given by those a pp r o a c h e d. The vast majority
of potential suppliers were unable to meet these criteria.
Of those who did, six produced detailed responses but the
remainder were unable to deal convincingly with the
specifications.
Two of the six were ruled out. one on the basis of a
doub t f ul track record (on feedback from within the
profession) and the other on the basis of price. More
information was sent to the remaining four and they were
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