Legal Services BulletinJanuary-February 2014

Jason AdderleyT: 0121 602 1445M: 07824 449 577E: j.adderley@erauk.net: @ERA_Legal

COMMENT FEATURES: see overleaf

PRINTING MONEY

Eversheds Look Forward To

€900,000 Savings On Print

LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY

How Could Your Firm Harness

Technology To Achieve Competitive Advantage?

The Editor

Jason Adderley is a consultant Partner with ERAspecialising in managing programmes of work forlegal and professional services firms.

He has 19 years experience of working withsolicitors and other professional consultants as aclient and as a service provider.

MERGER MANIA?According to PwC most of the top 25 firms believe amerger is likely or very likely by 2016 and this isincreasingly likely to be with an international firm.

DISGUISED SALARYGeorge Osborne’s decision to end the NIC benefitsenjoyed by LLPs may lead to a sudden rash of newequity partners and cash calls. But will the banks beforthcoming with the necessary funding?

SHREDDING SAVINGSAlthough competition is intensifying in the documentstorage and office supplies markets we’re increasinglyfinding suppliers maintaining margins by puttingridiculous rates in place for shredding. We’re happy todo a quick check for you ~ free of charge, of course.

PRACTICE TIPS

networkpartner withMore worryingly, and consistent with the themeof previous years surveys, the majority of firmsimplementing cost reduction programmes savedless than 5% of pre-programme costs.

Such results seem at odds with our ownexperience working with clients; late last yearwe delivered the latest projects to crystalliseover £250,000 worth of annual savings for afirm on the cusp of the Top 100 – and thismonth we’ll report more substantial six-figuresavings for a firm further up the turnover table.

Perhaps the poor results for cost reductionprogrammes identified by PwC are related to theperceived strengths and weaknesses of teams inback office functions.

Whereas 52% of respondents believe their firmhas a ‘strong’ Finance function, only 7% believetheir firm has a ‘strong’ Procurement function –which is understandable if, as PwC report, themajority of firms only use procurementprofessionals to support 20% of annual spend.

Essentially ERA’s raison d'être is to fill theperception / reality gap between the level ofsavings firms may expect and benefits firmsactually accrue – and to sustain those savings.

Our work with Eversheds (outlinedoverleaf) provides more compellingevidence. We’d love to explore theopportunities for savings with your firm.

As another year begins itwould be wise to revisitplans for businessimprovement and costreduction.

PwC in its annual Top 100Law Firms survey foundthat only a third of theTop 11-100 practices hadundertaken such anexercise in 2013.

Jason AdderleyT: 0121 602 1445M: 07824 449 577E: j.adderley@erauk.net: @ERA_Legal

STUDYCASE

Eversheds

“ERA’s guidance and expertise was critical to thesuccessful overhaul of our printing, scanning anddocument production facilities.

With their help we now have a Managed Printinfrastructure and outsourced on-site Print Roomservice that delivers exactly what our businessneeds and that is exceptional value for money.”

Mike Smith, Finance Director for Eversheds Ireland

As ERA Print Expert Michael Hully explains “Evershedsproduces over 1,500 Case Bibles and prints in excessof 5 million pages each year – naturally, the firm waskeen to ensure it was getting a high quality service inthe most cost-effective manner.”

Mike Smith, Finance Director at Eversheds explainedwhy he engaged ERA “We felt that ERA offered us notjust the technical, project, change management andprocurement expertise we required but also that anindependent external view would be essential if wewere to achieve the best possible outcome for thebusiness”

ERA recently implemented a Managed Print andoutsourced Print Room solution for the Irish officeof international law firm Eversheds.

The project has delivered much improved facilities andPrint Room services, savings of 38% on the ManagedPrint estate and substantial administrative andsecretarial labour efficiencies.

In total, savings could exceed €900,000 over the five-year contract term. A full Case Study is available onrequest.

ERA is Network Partner with theLegal LSN.

LSN Law Firm Forum February 2014

LSN Law Firm Forums provide a unique opportunity for you togather under one roof with others working in law firmmanagement, operational and support roles.

The next Forum is in Bristol on February 18.

For more information visit: www.legalsupportnetwork.co.uk

LEV

ER

AG

IN

G T

EC

HN

OLO

GY

Law firm leaders today facenotable challenges; downwardpressure on fees, the pressureto do more with less, newentrants to the market and, ofcourse, the ever present needfor compliance.

Consequently firms are seeking toharness technology to achievecompetitive advantage.

Many firms have embraced SpeechRecognition as a cost-effectivealternative to dictation. This hasallowed firms to increase fee-earnerheadcount without the need for aproportional increase in supportstaff. Even, and perhaps especially,smaller firms are drawing benefitsby being able to divert support staffto higher value-added PA-styleroles.

Software is also coming to the aidof fee earners swamped by thesheer proliferation of informationand documentation. DocumentReview comprises a hugeproportion of the total cost ofmatters, so technical solutions haveevolved to reduce the number ofdocuments to be reviewed.

In ERA’s core area of procurementfirms may use BusinessIntelligence software drawingdata from disparate sources acrossthe organisation to increase thespeed to savings and micro-manage compliance.

And of course, with the continuingtrend of merger and acquisition aVirtual Data Room provides aninvaluable platform for duediligence allowing easy access to allrelevant stakeholders.

Helpfully, ERA’s IT Team can adviseon all aspects of IT fromgovernance to hardware to SASS tosupport. We’re on hand when youneed us for a free initialconsultation.

IDEA

BIG