This year's IRIS Legal World event series attracted hundreds of
clients, prospects, consultants and journalists to the 4 venues, to
benefit from the informative content of the
presentations covering the subject of legal services reform
and learn about IRIS Legal Solutions' product strategy for the
future.
The key messages from the IRIS Legal World conferences from
an IRIS perspective are:
1. Removal of all end of support dates for AIM, Videss,
Mountain, Laserform Partnership products
We are removing the end of support dates for our
customers using AIM, Videss, Mountain, Laserform Partnership
products. We will continue to support and maintain the
products for customers until they choose to move to our next
generation platforms or for as long as it is technically and
commercially possible for us to do so. Based upon feedback
from our customers and best practice for software companies, we
feel this is the right thing for us to do. Clients should
choose to move to a new platform when they can see the clear
benefits of doing so.
2. Increased investment in IRIS Law Business,
including new workflow capabilities & continued investment in
IRIS Law Enterprise
IRIS Law Business is the product of choice for firms of all
sizes who want a Microsoft SQL based practice and case management
solution. It is designed to be easy to use and to deliver
functionality out of the box with minimal set up and
configuration.
At IRIS Legal World we previewed a new and significant module
for IRIS Law Business – IRIS Workflow. This will allow firms
to automate common business functions to ensure compliance and to
gain business efficiencies from being able to process matters in a
more timely and less manual manner. The workflow provides a
graphical interface for point and click design of best practice
workflows. Alternatively out of the box workflows will be
available in 2011 for clients to amend to their own practice’s
requirements. The module is integrated with IRIS Law Business
and end users can easily initiate the workflow processes from menus
on their desktop. IRIS Law Business workflow thereby delivers
additional value to the firm by providing higher levels of
configurability in an easy to use way.
IRIS is fully committed to supporting IRIS Law Enterprise on the
Progress platform. The market is sufficiently large, our customers
demand and we can comfortably resource and invest in this platform
to ensure our customers have ultimate choice over the best
platforms for their business.
3. Increased investment in AlphaLAW and the
delivery of new cloud / Hosted Services models for these
customers
We have more than 1400 law firms using AlphaLAW software, which
is our largest base of customers. IRIS is fully committed to
maintaining and developing the AlphaLAW suite of solicitor
products, thus safeguarding their investment in IRIS. As with
our other products, there are no end-of-support dates.
We have launched a number of new products and services
specifically for AlphaLAW customers at IRIS Legal World
including:
Hosted – we have invested
significant resources in our Hosted Services business and are now
delighted to be able to offer this great cost saving solution to
AlphaLAW users. By switching to Hosted firms are able to
manage their IT spend better via low fixed monthly fees whilst
removing the headache of having to manage their IT in-house.
Laserform – further to our
recent Laserform integration capabilities, we will shortly be
launching a number of “forms packs” exclusively for AlphaLAW
customers. These packs will be tailored to specific areas of
law and will provide you with all the forms you require to
practice.
4. Increased investment in OPSIS and the delivery
of new cloud / Hosted Services models for these
customers
IRIS is fully committed to supporting and maintaining the OPSIS
suite of products for as long as there is a requirement to do
so. We have over 800 firms using our OPSIS products and we
continue to win new clients for OPSIS due to its ease of use and
set up for smaller firms. Roadmap plans for the next releases
were presented at IRIS Legal World, along with some new packaged
offerings, such as offering OPSIS on Hosted, to remove the IT
burden for small firms
5. Release of new version of Laserform
IRIS continues to build on its market leading position in the
forms market and has invested further in a new release featuring
important functionality enhancements within an expansive library to
assist users with form completion and integrate seamlessly with
other document or case management systems commonly utilised by law
firms enabling a more streamlined approach to IT
management.
The catalogue of over 2600 forms guarantees to meet most form
demands. For example, Laserform v9.5 supports an advanced
group of IHT400s and full range of self-assessment forms, which are
extremely popular with probate, trust and estate practitioners.
IRIS has also enhanced the current features to bring even more
efficiency benefits to users. One such improvement was to the
forms bundle facility. Previously users had the ability to
link grouped forms as one complete file, which in itself was a
useful feature. Now though, there is scope for the bundled
forms to share common data, for automatic data entry
throughout. This means true multi-form flexibility, ideal for
the busy law firm who wants to complete interdependent forms
relating to a case simultaneously.
Finally IRIS has paid close attention to integration with case
management applications. Laserform v9.5 supports a wider
selection of these, so firms can fully integrate all their
software. Where this proves really useful is in automatic
population of solicitor, client and case details. Now, with
Laserform v9.5 fields mapped from case management to the forms stay
mapped even when the forms themselves change. The mapping
process need only happen once.
6. Launch of IRIS Law for ProcureCo
Based on our very successful IRIS Law solution, and building on
30 years’ experience of working with law firms involved in public
funded contract work, we have a solution which can be tailored to
meet the needs of chambers ProcureCos. A datasheet entitled
IRIS Law for ProcureCos can be found on the barristers web page.
7. IRIS as a Trusted Advisor
IRIS fully understands the challenges facing providers of Legal
Service - changes in legislation, implementation of reserved and
unreserved activities and the need for practices to remain
competitive and able to differentiate themselves.
Whilst IRIS will continue to support our existing case and practice
management solutions, and our electronic legal forms we will
continue to invest substantially in next generation, industry
leading solutions. We will also ensure our customers
understand the market changes, the solutions that can help them
achieve differentiation or stay competitive, the best practice
being adopted in the industry and how to drive value from their
business.
Our unique market leading position, in both solicitors and
barristers, the size and breadth of our customer base, our on-going
investment in products and services, plus our ability to coordinate
and offer partner solutions to our customers will allow us to act
as the trusted advisor for the legal service marketplace.
8. Continued substantial investment in
products
At a time of deep recession, when many software suppliers have
significantly reduced their investment in research and development,
IRIS has continued to invest significant amounts of time, money and
resources to researching the marketplace and developing our
portfolio of products and services. The investments we are
making now will ensure that our clients remain competitive and at
the forefront of technological innovation. IRIS clients will
be best placed to compete successfully in the highly competitive
new legal services market.
Read more and contact us
Read our press release on IRIS Legal World and
email us at legal@iris.co.uk
for more information on the key messages delivered at the
events. Registered clients can also download the industry
speaker presentations from the IRIS Legal web
portal site.