Internet pioneers

Case study: Woolley & Co creates the world’s first virtual law firm

Ten years ago, very few people knew what the internet was and fewer still saw the benefits to business – particularly smaller businesses. One of those that did was Andrew Woolley, a partner at a large law firm based in the Midlands, who signed up to BT’s internet service in 1996.

After a spell at Warwick Business School, Woolley decided to set up his own company, Woolley &Co, but wanted it to move away from the traditional law firm mould. Most importantly, he wanted it to use technology to provide the best possible service to clients, while keeping the costs down.

In order to do this, Woolley decided to create the first virtual law firm. Rather than having an office, partners would work from home, and would make the internet central to the business’ development. This would reduce costs, including office space and administrative staff, and also increase efficiencies.

“When you look at a law firm’s accounts, you generally see a large number and a small net profit at the bottom,” explained Woolley. “There are huge inefficiencies, which can be greatly reduced by using the internet.”

Woolley gave the example of communicating with clients by letter, rather than an email: “A letter, even sent first class, can take three days to reach a client, where as even in 1996 an email would take the maximum of an hour. Over the course of a long case, which may last a year or more, that time saving is massive, which equates to cost savings for both the law firm and the client.”

Woolley already had his business telephone line with BT, which he used for faxing documents to clients and other law firms, so chose to use BT’s new internet service.

Despite email and the internet being new, clients liked the idea of the rapid channel and the majority of written contact with clients is now done via the internet.

“It’s difficult to imagine life without email, but ten years ago email was really something unknown,” explained Woolley. “Now, around half of our business comes through the Web, so customers just expect us to be on email.”

This is surprising for a small business in one of the most traditional industries, and other companies are often shocked by Woolley & Co’s adoption of technology, as Woolley explained:

“Some law firms find it hard to understand our adoption of email and internet technologies – even now. We often have a situation where we email over documents to a solicitor, and they post it back to us when it’s been processed. This not only leads to delays, but there have been a number of cases recently where they have been posted to the wrong address – this is avoided if they just reply to an email.”

The internet has enabled Woolley &Co to develop rapidly, and the company now has eight partners specialising in small business and divorce law.

“Our initial site was simply a company brochure online,” explained Woolley. “This gave information about the areas we covered, some background and contact details. That was enough to begin attracting a small number of customers via the Web.”

Around the same time, rather than just internet access, which at that stage was dial-up 56Kb service, the talk turned to high-speed internet access and broadband. Woolley saw the possibilities that broadband could offer the firm. The increased speeds of up to 512Kb – ten times faster than dial-up – and the always-on nature of the connection meant that increased efficiencies. In addition to this, it meant that the company’s phone lines weren’t always tied up while lawyers were online, allowing clients to call through.

In 2000, broadband became a reality for Woolley &Co. Woolley chose the broadband service from BT because it offered improved speeds and reliability over the dial-up service.

“Dial-up was great, but broadband was better,” explained Woolley. “One of the biggest differences was the speed, which meant that we could send larger documents, including client files, more quickly over the internet, without worrying about the delivery being interrupted.”

It also enabled the team to take advantage of BT’s virtual messaging service that could divert calls to other team members and email messages to individuals, if necessary.

With the adoption of broadband, Woolley &Co developed a second version of the site that added more features.

“One of the things we added was a request form along with contact details, which allowed us to accept more information from clients and prospect at this first stage of the relationship,” explained Woolley.

The Web site has developed considerably since those early days, and the company is running its fifth version, with each practice now having its own site – business-lawfirm.co.uk, divorce-lawfirm.co.uk and e-lawfirm.co.uk.

Not only do they contain large amounts of legal information and advice about common legal problems, they also offer clients the ability to pay fees through the Web site and gives them the ability to securely access their files online to check on progress.

This has changed the way many of Woolley &Co’s customers look at law firms. This is not just because the company has a Web site, but because of what they can do on the site itself, as Woolley explains:

“As a result of maximising our use of the internet and the Web site, we can offer clients fixed-price services, which is innovative in the industry, especially for small business law. They can even buy advice online.

“We are continuing to look at ways to harness the internet to drive efficiencies, both internally and for customers. As a result, as well as offering the ability to make online payments, we will soon be sending out e-bills to clients.”

“One of the keys to the success of a virtual firm of any kind is information,” explained Andrew Woolley, a partner and founder of Woolley &Co. “Our approach means that rather than clogging up our desktops with support applications, problems can be remotely fixed over the internet and as a result we can always access our data.”

Aware that high-quality IT support was essential for the business to operate effectively, Woolley looked at the options.

“For virtual businesses in particular, support is a necessity, rather than a luxury. Having a wide geographic spread across the UK made it impossible to use a local firm, and it wasn’t viable for each lawyer to have their own specialist,” said Woolley.

As a result, Woolley realised that a virtual approach was the ideal solution and chose IT Support Manager from BT.

IT Support Manger provides customers with a dedicated support team that can talk customers through how to solve problems they are experiencing and can access their desktops remotely to change settings. It also provides a first line of defence in the form of an easy-to-use diagnostic tool, which allows users to remedy simple problems.

The support team is made up of highly trained IT specialists who can provide solutions to software related queries for a subscription of £10 per PC per month.

“The helpdesk team can provide answers to even the most complex questions that we may have,” said Woolley. “And, because there is a standard monthly charge, rather than an hourly rate, we’re not worried about any mounting costs. It also makes financial planning easier.”

The IT Support Manager helpdesk doesn’t just deal with problems: as with any IT team, the technicians can also offer advice on future initiatives and developments.

“IT support means we have a virtual member of staff we can call on to remedy the situation, should anything go wrong – rather than worrying about finding someone if something happens. We often don’t keep to traditional office hours, as people want answers to problems there and then. As a result, we need to minimise our downtime and IT Support manager is helping us do just that.

Click here to find out more about IT Support Manager.