The way things were

I can remember my old legal life as if it was yesterday. Groaning filing cabinets stuffed full of cardboard files, a roomful of secretaries devoted to typing letters and filing correspondence, various miscellaneous admin staff, and a firm made up of lawyers who were obliged to be physically present in the office from 9–5, Monday to Friday, at the very least.

Look a bit more closely and you would see some of the attendant lifestyle problems I used to find with this way of working. No flexibility in when or where you worked; competent use of IT but no plan to drive its use to power all aspects of the firm and its mode of operation. My old firm. Any old firm, now I come to think of it. Speaking as someone with an interest in IT, I used to find the whole set-up intensely frustrating.

The present

Fast forward through two years of intensive work and business-building, and you’ll now find me leading a very different lifestyle and running my own “virtual” firm, e-Litigate (www.e-litigate.com). The way I work is unconventional, and it would not be right for everyone, but I love it and have never looked back. The Law Society of Scotland has been very supportive of the business concept, and initial meetings with them clarified that there were no issues regarding the way I proposed to work that would cause them concern.

I now work between a home office and shared office space. The latter is rented from another solicitors firm. All of my business mail is sent to the office, where it is scanned and emailed to me on receipt. This works very well and gives almost complete freedom to work from any remote location. I spent a great deal of time researching how best to deal with phone calls given that I don’t employ any secretarial or reception staff. The answer was a VOIP system and I chose to use Vonage (www.vonage.co.uk) as my provider. The service offers great flexibility with voicemail files emailed to you and easy diverts to the mobile. Similarly, faxes arrive as email attachments via a service I sourced from eFax (www.efax.co.uk). Of course, like any modern lawyer, my Blackberry is seldom far away, although I am finding the restricted webmail limit and lack of complete integration with Outlook an increasing hindrance. I’m thinking of a smartphone running Windows Mobile software as a replacement. Through all of this, my aim has been to provide a thoroughly responsive service, so that my clients are confident that I am always at the end of the phone, or just an email away, when they need me.

When I started up e-Litigate, I pared down the concept of a law firm to the bare essentials, and then rebuilt it from scratch. I felt that technology could be used to much greater effect than most firms realised. I longed for some flexibility in how, where and when I worked, and I wanted an incentive to do well.

I felt that a lot of the overheads associated with a traditional practice were unnecessary. I didn’t want my clients to have to pay extra for my services merely for me to enjoy the trimmings of a fancy office, or to have a secretary to do my typing or make my coffee. The type of clients I usually work for – and the type I was hoping to attract – are savvy, IT-literate business people, who are looking for a legal service that is good value for money. I decided that working from home, with a shared office base for mailing and meetings was the core requirement. So now my Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice-recognition software does the typing (www.nuance.com) and I’ve indulged myself in a superb expresso machine! (See also the article by Bruce de Wert of Caithness firm Georgesons on voice recognition in the September/October 2007 issue of the Newsletter.)

From the start, my interest in green issues has dictated that my new firm would be “paperless” or at least as close to it as is possible. As a new start-up, it has been easier to develop this from scratch. There are real practical benefits to holding the client’s file electronically, as it means that I can always access the full file on any matter when I’m away from the “office”.

Obviously, given my reliance on so much digitised data, I have found it critical to have robust backups in place. I invested in a commercial remote backup service called Depositit (www.depositit.com) and this has worked very well. Crucially, this provides secure off-site storage.

With experience, I’ve refined my original business model in a couple of ways. In particular, I had a server installed about a year ago to facilitate remote working. This was commissioned by a local IT company (www.icelantic.com) and is maintained by them with my own occasional intervention. This enables me to log into the system from any computer via secure VPN link, and means I can work from anywhere with a broadband connection. The other significant development was my snail mail scanning service. This is provided under the agreement I have with the firm I rent my office space from. Following its introduction, I don’t have to worry if I’m out of town for any reason; I can always pick up the mail. I found that, although I can do without much of the support available in a traditional firm, help with the physical mail was essential, as I am often out and about on business. In this respect, I’ve moved away from the original concept of being completely unsupported but at nominal cost and to real advantage.

I’ve been helped tremendously in setting up the firm by a band of loyal clients, who have stuck with me and whom I hope have been well served by the new efficiencies the firm has brought. From a marketing perspective, the firm’s website is pivotal to our external presence in the marketplace, and whilst I have spent time with linking and other SEO there is always more that can be done.

The things to come

I have plans to expand the firm in the near future, to take on others who would like to work in the same way. Watch this space!

Mark Harrison is founder and principal of Edinburgh-based firm e-Litigate.

Email mark.harrison@e-litigate.com.