FEATURE | case management >>
“They provide a central repository for all your case data – electronic evidence such as emails, hardcopy evidence that has been scanned and is now in soft copy, witness statements, affidavits, trial testimony, and exhibits” Bree Galvin
e.law
►► CASE STUDY: MINTER ELLISON’S ADELAIDE WORKERS COMPENSATION PRACTICE In larger firms it’s not unusual for different practice areas to use different case management systems. As Minter Ellison’s busy Adelaide worker’s compensation division deals with more than 1,000 files a year, the team chose a UK-based provider, Axxia, to handle its requirements as a heavy user, even though other sections of the firm run on other systems. “For us Axxia not only deals with the relevant dates but effectively runs whole practice management from top to bottom,” says partner Mark Calligeros. “We work on a fixed-fee basis and every step in every live matter is driven by this. So you really need a system you can rely on 100%.” Calligeros said his practice was introduced to Axxia’s case management system by a Scottish lawyer who had used it for banking transactions while in the UK, and found it extremely useful. The system allows the practice to adhere to stringent key performance indicators, in terms of the time it takes to send out correspondence and perform other tasks during and after hearings, as well as carrying out the procedural matters of a trial. It also links in with Microsoft Outlook. Calligeros says that while it took him some time to get used to the system, now that he has it adds an incredible amount of value to the practice, and it would be difficult to imagine running efficiently without it. His only gripe was that it was not completely seamless with his e-mail system. “It’s only a couple of clicks but it would be nice if it was fully integrated,” he says.
all Unicode compatible, ensuring we can support what is commonly referred to as CJK characters (Chinese, Japanese + Korean),” she says. Meanwhile Melbourne-based Caseflow is hoping to expand its operations throughout the English-speaking common law world. It launched in New
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Zealand last year and, following a good response, has plans to cross the Pacific with a launch in Canada this August, and from there springboard into the massive US legal market. “Our software is completely jurisdictionindependent,” Smith says. “There is no terminology that can’t be changed.” ALB
Australasian Legal Business ISSUE 8.5