Hatstone Lawyers
A Jersey-based law firm launched two years ago with an Apple-based IT system has enjoyed the technical support and cost-benefits of choosing Apple over a Windows platform.
Phil Stone
The boutique law firm – now with 30-plus staff – also found its rapidly growing business put pressure on the document and email management needs of its operations.
Phil Stone – head of IT at the practice explained: “For document management we were using a central file server set up to provide user access with permissions. For a small firm this was workable, but as we grew it resulted in people structuring folders in different ways; it was impossible to search for documents and there was no real ability to save emails – this was not a solution for a growing firm”.
Carol-Ann Le Boutillier, Associate at Hatstone Lawyers added: “We needed the ability to solve our file sharing problem, the extent of which was huge”.
Carol-Ann Le Boutillier
As the firm increased in size and with more of its personnel conducting business remotely (from satellite offices around the world), the existing central file server set up was pushed to its limits. Carol-Ann said: “It was difficult to search for documents once they had been created and remote access to the system was incredibly slow (sometimes unworkable). We also had the additional business risk associated with staff saving emails and documents to their personal laptops in an attempt to circumvent these problems. If their personal hard drives became corrupt this meant that any documents stored there would be completely lost to the business. We definitely needed to do something”.
“Ticking the boxes” with DocMoto
When introduced to DocMoto, Phil Stone saw immediately the advantage of a document and email management system that could be tailored to the needs of the firm. “The fact that it doesn’t rely on a permanent connection to the server means that the user doesn’t lose their work if the internet connection is interrupted,” he said.
Carol-Ann added: “DocMoto is really the only document management system that ticks all the boxes”. For Hatstone Lawyers, that includes:
- the ability to create a template folder structure for documents;
- the facility to upload legal precedents into one central system for use by all lawyers;
- a file tagging system which makes documents easier to identify and search for;
- indexing emails by all possible search fields;
- extensive search functionality (by author, key word, content, document ID, etc.);
- automated revision control and audit function – giving us the ability to see who has made changes to a document and when; and
- built in document comparison between different versions of a single document.
Bespoke DocMoto development and managing practice workflow
As part of the functionality required by Hatstone Lawyers, the DocMoto team developed the bespoke ability to ‘unpack’ client emails and handle large quantities of attached documentation. Once an email has been saved into DocMoto, the user is given an option to split the email into its component parts. The email message itself remains in the email folder (unchanged) but the attachments are ‘unpacked’ into a separate documents folder where they can be stored ready for amending and updating.
Carol-Ann said: “Our workflow has been radically improved by DocMoto. Our lawyers are now working from a central system which has safeguards to prevent documents from being lost or inadvertently overwritten (even if our internet connection is lost or interrupted)”.
“All our emails are now saved in DocMoto and are accessible to multiple-users, meaning our lawyers can view the very latest email correspondence about a client received by anyone in the firm. The search facility in DocMoto is so good you can never lose a document”.
DocMoto – a business revolution
But what has overhauling document and email management meant to Hatstone Lawyers?
“It has made a huge difference to us as a business. In fact, it has revolutionised the way we work. From being a small firm with an archaic system, we now have the platform to run a business,” Carol-Ann said.
“The DocMoto team is really good and it’s great to work with people willing to take feedback and develop the product in a way that will benefit us”.
Phil Stone added: “It’s very rare to find a company that listens so intently to what a customer wants and always comes back with a solution”.