These are the companies that find you rainmakers, ensure your cases run smoothly, and take care of the numbers. These are the service providers that make your firm a successful one. From recruitment agencies to dictation providers to case management software providers, there are many aspects to running a successful law firm that do not relate strictly to the practice of law.
The very best of these companies will be featured here – as chosen by the legal profession they serve. Almost 200 of you answered the call to name the best service providers across the following categories: Recruitment Agency, Boutique Legal Recruitment Agency, Accounting & Practice Management Software Provider, Document Reproduction and Management Provider, Document Management and/or Case Management Service Provider, Dictation/Transcription Provider, and Tertiary Education Provider.
After votes were counted and re-counted, ALB judges were able to grant the most popular service providers the prestige of a Gold, Silver, or Bronze medal – or if they were close enough to the rest of the pack, an Honourable Mention. The difference between first place and honourable mention was a mere handful of votes in many of the categories and, when taking into account the fact that almost 200 lawyers took part in the voting, that is no mean feat.
Boutique Legal Rrecruitment Agency
Law Staff Australia is a specialist recruitment agency with a long tradition of filling vacant roles for firms, ranging from catering staff to legal professionals and management. Catherine Neil, HR manager at Henry Davis York, has been using Law Staff Australia for the past six years and says the agency has been able to help fill even the most difficult positions.
“They’re very consistent with finding the right people for the roles and that’s what I like about them – that nothing’s too difficult for them to tackle,” Neil said. “I get some unusual roles that come up in areas like precedents and different IT roles and they always come up with the goods.”
Neil says it is their understanding of the unique needs of a law firm that makes the agency her top choice. “I’d say for us they would be our first pick. Their longevity in the business and their understanding of the market really makes them stand out. We go to them because of the relationship but also because of their expertise in the area,” she says.
The agency’s commitment to client service and delivering high-quality candidates also stood out for Neil. She says that Law Staff Australia makes the effort to know and understand her business so they can provide the firm with the right candidates.
Recruitment Agency
ALB voters picked Hays as the top overall recruitment agency. – taking the gold medal after narrowly edging out Michael Page and Robert Walters. Hays Legal first started providing recruitment services more than 18 years ago but did not open an office in Sydney until 2001. That was followed by offices in Melbourne Haysand Brisbane in 2002. Hays now has 11 consultants nationally, working for both law firms and in-house clients.
“We understand the difference the right role can make to a person’s life and the impact one person can have on a business,” says Grahame Doyle, Hays regional director. “Many of our consultants were practising lawyers prior to choosing a career in recruitment. We aim to share our knowledge and expertise to the benefit of our candidates and clients alike.”
Doyle says that, by truly understanding its clients and candidates, the agency is able to help people and companies achieve a lasting impact. “We understand the real challenges that faced lawyers this year,” he says. “We empathise with them and are in a position where we can offer advice, guidance and, most importantly, options.” To keep at the forefront of the industry, Doyle says Hays is committed to going that one step further – maintaining a close relationship with both clients and candidates throughout the recruitment process. “Our interest doesn’t stop at the introduction,” he explains.
Dictation/Transcription Provider
Winscribe was started in 1995 after its sister company was asked to develop a digital dictation solution for a New Zealand hospital. The people working on the project realised there was a wider demand for the development, forming Winscribe to market the product internationally. The company now has offices in the UK, US and Switzerland to complement its existing offices in New Zealand and Australia.
“When we put the Winscribe product together we looked at it from the point of view of what the user wanted – rather than what the existing system delivered,” says Winscribe CEO Matthew Weavers. “And, because we didn’t have an awful lot of exposure to existing systems, we delivered exactly what the customers wanted.”
In Australia, law firms account for half of Winscribe’s business and the company has become an industry favourite – despite not opening its first office in the country until late last year. Winscribe finished above its competition and Weavers attributes that to the fact that it has always been innovative, in terms of adopting technology and adapting it to meet the needs of its clients.
“We utilised things like local area networks (LAN), wide area networks and later the Internet as well,” he says. “I think it was more customer-focused when we produced the product than it had been in the past, and therefore the product was quite differentiated when it first came on the market.”
Accounting and Practice Management System Software Provider
ALB readers chose Aderant as their preferred provider of practice management system software. Voters described the software’s functionality – as well as the support offered by the Aderant team – as key reasons why they voted for the US-based provider. “It really is the most fundamental productivity application in the firm, not just financial management but also risk and compliance,” says Deacons project manager Lionel Bird.
Bird is currently overseeing 30 projects relating to his firm’s merger with Norton Rose, which comes into effect from 1 January, 2010. “As it happens, Norton Rose use Aderant as well which makes things easier,” Bird says. “One of the highlights around the service offering is that Aderant is a global product.”
Once Deacons and Norton Rose merge, the group will have 30 offices in 23 countries using 13 currencies, he says. The Aderant software has “become quite significant in preparing for the merger”. And support from the company, which has had a relationship with Deacons stretching back to 2002, has been very good.
“It’s fair to say it’s a trusted relationship,” Bird says. “It’s good to be able to talk directly with senior people in the US.” Deacons has seen significant growth since it first started using Aderant software and the fact that the software has been able to keep up is a testament to its flexibility.
Document Management and/or Case Management Software Provider
LexisNexis, which narrowly missed out on sharing the top spot in the previous category, was voted as the best case management software provider. TJ Viljoen, CEO of LexisNexis Pacific, says that the award is a “fantastic” result for the business. “The awards demonstrate our commitment to developing world-class practice management solutions integrated with legal information for our clients, ensuring their agility in a fast-paced, competitive and constantly changing legal business environment,” he says.
LexisNexis’ Visualfiles application is the document management system gaining all the credit for the company. The Legal Aid Commission of Tasmania was established in 1991 to increase access to legal and social justice for all Tasmanians through the provision of representation, advice and education on legal issues. They use Visualfiles to manage its vast case management workload that can handle the tens of thousands of cases that are processed by the Commission each year.
Deacons uses a number of LexisNexis’ software solutions, including the client relationship management system Interaction and Visualfiles, which is utilised in its insolvency & restructuring practice. “We use the client relationship management system called Interaction which is a LexisNexis product – as it happens Norton Rose use that product as well and it integrates significantly into Aderant,” Deacons program manager Lionel Bird says. “I suppose it reflects their respective position that the providers have and how important it is to have those global relationships.”
Document Reproduction and Management Provider
When you have almost 200 legal professionals voting to select their top service providers, it is surprising that there would be a tie for first place. However, in the document reproduction and management provider division of our Awards, there is a tie. Law In Order and LitSupport both had incredible backing and have taken out the top spot in this category.
Law In Order recently celebrated its 10 year anniversary of providing outsourced document reproduction and management services to law firms and government agencies. Set up in Sydney in March 1999 by md Julian McGrath, who was a paralegal for more than six years at Ebsworth & Ebsworth before deciding that he would be better suited to servicing lawyers than becoming one. And the firm he founded quickly grew.
“Our growth during that time was based on the premise that while our competition was set on capturing the top-tier firms, we believed there was a hole in servicing the mid-tier and smaller firms. That allowed us to develop a large client base and grow at a similar rate to those firms,” he says. “As a result we gained the trust of the top-tier and now count many of them as our clients,” he adds. McGrath says that understanding the pressures placed on law firms every day makes Law In Order stand out from the crowd. The company provides everything from general photocopying and scanning to high-level electronic evidence discovery and hosting.
LitSupport started business four years prior to Law In Order, when Val Pitt started working on document management projects from home, for the partner of a law firm she worked with before the birth of her second child took place.
As she became busier, she realised there was a gap in the market for specialist legal document management services. “What started out as a few overflow projects from one firm then spiraled to a full-time workload,” she says. “The business began in 1995 as a solo effort from my living room and has grown into a medium-sized operation with offices now in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.”
Pitt says that since document management is not a regulated industry, LitSupport has taken the initiative in setting the standard. The company has driven industry innovation in three key areas, she says, by being the first legal bureau to receive ISO Accreditation in Australia, the first to introduce online ordering and job tracking, and the first (and only) company to become a Good Environmental Choice certified supplier. LitSupport separates itself from the crowd “by doing our job better than they can,” Pitt says.
“Legal photocopying, printing, scanning and document management is our core business – whereas a law firm’s is legal services.”
Tertiary Education Provider
Melbourne scored another victory in its intra-state rivalry against Sydney, with Melbourne Law School beating off strong competition from Sydney University to secure the coveted Gold medal in the ALB Service Provider Awards. Melbourne University was the first to teach law in Australia and has been providing lawyers and in-house counsel to Australian companies and law firms for generations.
“This is a faculty at the vanguard of legal education firmly committed to offering Australia’s most globalised program of instruction, complemented by opportunities for our students to immerse themselves in experiences that will open their minds to the full range of possibilities that a qualification in law offers,” says Professor James Hathaway, Dean of the Law School.
It is the only Australian member of the London-based Centre for Transnational Legal Studies – a joint venture of ten leading international law schools – and is the only Australian member of the Association of Transnational Law Schools (ATLAS), a consortium of international universities, he says. Hathaway says that the law school will continue to initiate changes to ensure that Melbourne remains at the pinnacle of legal education in Australia, while taking its place as one of the leading law schools in the world.
One change was the implementation of a mentoring system for its students. “From 2009, first-year students have the opportunity to be paired with a legal professional in their area of interest,” Hathaway says. “The program will support students’ formal academic training by providing a link to the profession and exposure to the practical realities of working in the law.”
| Category | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Honourable Mention |
| Boutique Legal Recruitment Agency | Law Staff Australia | GR Law | Legal Personnel | Burgess Paluch, Integrity Legal |
| Recruitment Agency | Michael Page, Hays | Hughes Castell | Robert Walters | Hudson |
| Dictation/Transcription Provider | Winscribe | Big Hand | Quickscribe | Speech Recognition Australia |
| Accounting and Practice Management System Software Provider | Aderant | LexisNexis | Leap Legal | OpenPractice |
| Document Management and/or Case Management Software Provider | LexisNexis | CCH | Autonomy iManage | Caseflow |
| Document Reproduction and Management Provider | LitSupport, Law In Order | elaw | Law Image Services | LexData |
| Tertiary Education Provider | Melbourne University | Sydney University | University of NSW | Monash University |