Bobby Reid, Partner at McGovern Reid says…
“To survive as a legal aid practice, you need to be well run and hard working. To thrive though you also need to implement cost effective IT systems that get to the heart of your practice. By combining your industry, quality legal work and a great system from Denovo your practice can drive forward.
Managing Reports
Management Reports comparing each aspect of SLAB/LSC transactions are available at your fingertips.
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You are in control of monitoring claims to and payments from SLAB/LAA. The amount of an Account submitted for payment can be recorded against the case without affecting the overall Balance. The amount of Legal Aid Outstanding is automatically shown as a memo balance on the individual ledger and available throughout the software.
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On the payment side, there is a feature to cover every eventuality. Legal Aid matching allows you to process: Accounts paid in full, paid but with accepted abatements. This flexibility ensures that you are accurately recording the true payment status, giving you a clearer picture of just what is and isn’t being paid.
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Where abatements are in dispute these figures are retained on the system. You keep track of these sums by running one of the many Management Reports, and in this case, the Legal Aid Outstanding Report. All reports can be grouped by Analysis types which, include Fee Earner, Department and Office.
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Losing Revenue by doing Legal Advice & Assistance work without enough Authorised Expenditure? Legal Aid helps you keep abreast of what your limits are through automatic messaging. To track your Authorised Expenditure limit, simply set the current amount on the Job or Matter Account and you will be advised when your Work in Progress is approaching this amount. This gives you the opportunity to submit your Increase form in advance of doing the required work.
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A single-click from the Job or Matter Account will launch your Internet Browser and take you direct to the SLAB/LSC AA/INC pdf form for completion. To record the increase simply add this as a time recording entry. This automatically updates the Legal Aid section of the Job or Matter Account with the new Authorised Expenditure lim
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A full history of dates and amounts granted is kept on the ledger. Get the information you need using Intelligent Legal Aid. Your software can be configured to use the Legal Aid or Legal Advice & Assistance reference number as the equivalent of a Fee Note number on a Private Fee. This means that all SLAB/LAA Accounts consistently use the correct reference number.
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Legal Aid also deals with document-based activities such as Letters, Mandates, Court Writs and the like. When these documents are generated through the system, the option to time record the entry, on a “per sheet” or “per page” basis, is available.
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Let’s not forget about the implications of calculating the value of Work in Progress for Tax Calculation purposes. Having time recorded as part of your daily routine means that you can ensure your Work in Progress is reduced to the minimum amount by Billing clients in advance of the Tax Date threshold. Events is a term, within Denovo Business Intelligence, that refers to all types of contact between a Legal Firm and its clients.
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Over 18,000 rules built into our software to help law firms comply fully for the purposes of Lexel inspections.
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Everything from Telephone Calls In/Out, Email In/ Out, all letters produced for the clients and letters incoming can all be easily generated via the Events feature. As a consequence, all areas of work can be stored within the Denovo suite of software with less user input than the traditional methods whilst enabling the practice to build up a complete electronic file with every movement time recorded, date and time stamped.