A lawyer's time is always of the essence

Managing time and information are fundamental to operating a successful legal practice. For many that is achieved through a fully featured and integrated legal practice system called Infinitylaw.

What is Infinitylaw?

Infinitylaw is a well-respected, customisable accounting, management and marketing system you can tailor to fit the needs of your firm and the individuals within it. Regular application updates and support ensure it continues to fulfill the current and future needs of modern practices. It enables its users to keep, save time and maximise profitability.

Thomson Reuters NZ acquires Infinitylaw

Thomson Reuters NZ acquired Infinitylaw in August 2012.  At that time Country Manager, Haydn Davies said, “The acquisition of Infinitylaw is a very significant development for Thomson Reuters and fully aligned with our commitment to help law firms grow and become more profitable by providing them with high quality information solutions. We regard acquiring Infinitylaw as pivotal and highly complementary to our established core legal publishing business.”

The development of Infinitylaw

To find out more about Infinitylaw and its 20 year history I talked to Roger Richardson, General Manager, who for many of those years has had its end-users best interests at heart.

Infinitylaw, he said, was initially developed in the early 1980s to handle trust accounting.

By the time the 1990s came along many people were using personal PCs to create, store and access documents and other information.  He says that once Microsoft Windows won the battle to become the favoured operating system, it made sound sense to extend the scope of the original Infinitylaw. Soon it became a hub – the central point for all practice information creation and accessing.

Infinitylaw and problem solving

The adoption of a single centralised system solved major user headaches for legal firms.

1. It cut down the cost of using support staff to source and access information on behalf of lawyers. Now they were doing it for themselves.
2. It provided everyone with a means to access, work on and share information about clients, transactions, and documents related to them, from their desks or remotely from outside the office.  That brought transparency along with timesaving immediacy.

Keeping up to date

Roger keenly appreciates the challenges of software development. It’s an industry not given to strolling. Change sprints from idea to rollout.  How does Infinitylaw remain agile – able to keep pace and deliver what users want?

One of the key ways it has managed to maintain, and grow its place within the increasingly competitive space of the legal practice management software market is through communication.

Customer driven change

From the beginning Infinitylaw management and developers have nurtured an open and honest feedback system.  Roger says they’re used to fielding hundreds of change requests that come through their online customer support portal and from face-to-face user meetings. Those are ranked alongside internal change requests made to keep pace with new technologies and important anticipated customer needs. The greater number of requests for a development benefiting the highest number of users has more chance of coming to fruition.

Regular annual releases

In addition to encouraging and listening to feedback Roger says they use an iterative approach to develop major new features. Since the first installation in 1996 there are two new feature releases per year.  Customers evaluate early versions and help refine them while they are actively used in the real world.

In between those releases, regular automatic live updates deliver small urgently needed changes when required.

The regularity of releases ensures changes arrive gradually making it easier for the users to assimilate them.

To ensure the best of ongoing performance,   all customers are contractually required to move to the latest release when it is delivered.

Mobile and apps

Infinitylaw has always been nimble and intends to stay that way. They’ve moved with the times: from PCs to supporting mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.  It has an iOS and Android time recording app that syncs time back via Wi-Fi or 3G.   More are planned.

Comparing apples with apples or apples with oranges

We know there are multiple practice management systems.  We also know it’s hard to stand back and objectively compare and contrast your own product with others out there.

However that’s something potential users are sure to do.

So what does Roger think Infinitylaw does well?

He says most systems list a similar set of features because the underlying customer needs are the same.

Infinitylaw's point of difference

However, he says it’s not just about the software and the features.  Roger is sure Infinitylaw’s point of difference is keeping very close to their customers while fostering a strong user community.   He gives two recent examples to illustrate. The first involved sending out an email containing a link to a survey inviting feedback and comment on proposed enhancements. That had a subscriber completion rate of over 50% as well as drawing personal emails and phone calls. The second has been requests to name the date of the 2013 user conference. People want to plan their holiday breaks around it, he says.

Interactions like that keep us in touch with the real needs of law firms, he says.  He also comments that the conference allows users to have their say directly. They shake us up, he says, if they think we are not paying them proper attention and respect as in firms combining forces to insist on changes we haven’t rated highly enough to make.  That’s something Roger believes is very healthy as it makes for honest, responsive relationships.

Testimonials and positive feedback

Roger states that the most frequently commended attributes of the product are its:

1. strong easy-to-use time recording
2. very comprehensive information storage and easy accessibility for clients and matters
3. very effective integrated document management system
4. range of automatic functions making the system very easy to manage
5. flexibility, making it highly configurable to meet the specific needs of firms and the individuals within them
6. very effective user community and good communication with Infinitylaw team members

 And lastly what about training and support?

Cheryl Subritzky is the Infinitylaw Training Manager.

To contact please email:cheryl.subritzky@thomsonreuters.com

She plans the training for new implementations and for follow up training.  Aside from Cheryl there are another three full time trainers.

The Infinitylaw Support Manager is Brendon Parkinson.

To contact please email: brendon.parkinson@thomsonreuters.com 

Brendon and three other people provide support for both NZ and Victoria, Australia.  Users request support by logging calls on our portal:  https://portal.infinitylegal.net/   

Find out more

If you’re on the lookout for a replacement legal practice management system and want to explore the possibilities of Infinitylaw you can find out more by:

•  visiting http://www.thomsonreuters.co.nz/infinitylaw
• calling  our customer care team 0800 10 60 60

emailing Roger: roger.richardson@thomsonreuters.com