We were delighted to see the ALTA Awards shortlist Stephen So and Kendrah Young of Lander & Rogers as a finalist in the ‘Transformers’ category – which sought to recognise the most successful approach to dealing with significant transition or transformation affecting change in Australian legal tech.
Having joined the Lander & Rogers LawTech Hub in 2019, eBrief Ready worked closely to develop and stress test the platform under ‘real’ conditions.
The eBrief Ready software addresses a number of important issues present in the legal industry – all of which were magnified by the Covid-19 pandemic.
- How to work effectively and securely from home
- How to move trials online to reduce overcrowding and improve access to justice
- How to reduce the levels of waste in the process (time and environment) and improve productivity
- How to improve collaboration between all parties involved in a matter
- How to run a paperless trial (no more trolleys full of folders)
As a firm, Lander & Rogers aim to deliver exceptional, environmentally conscious legal services to their clients. This program formed one of the key components of the firm’s paperlite strategy. They were also looking to address the issue of there being no consistent approach to the sharing of briefs between solicitors, barristers, courts and other parties involved in a particular matter. In a profession built on rules and precedents, it was surprising that something as necessary and routine as sharing briefs had no industry-wide standard to improve collaboration and productivity.
For Lander & Rogers alone, the environmental benefit has been profound. The enormous efficiency gains realised via a reduction in the administrative burden has also had a substantial positive effect on staff morale. A pilot was run in late 2019 using the eBrief Ready technology, with the results showing that the time taken to actually physically compile the PDF brief, once the relevant documents had been identified by the lead solicitor, was measured to be ten times faster – now taking just 15 minutes, down from 2.5 hours. This represented a huge increase in productivity, not to mention the positive flow on effects for staff morale and wellbeing.
As Covid-19 took hold in 2020, it became even more obvious that existing work processes concerning barristers’ briefs were outdated, and the opportunity cost of low productivity caused by an absence in streamlined delivery, indexing, discovery and searching, were immense. So as the world expected the legal profession to do ‘more with less,’ standardising and digitising brief delivery was an obvious, secure and fast way to do just that.
Lander & Rogers assisted TA Law’s eBrief Ready in moving the legal industry (led in Victoria) to a central secure platform to share and manage briefs for solicitors, barristers and the courts. This has in turn driven productivity and been pivotal to the running of the Victorian legal sector during the extended pandemic lockdown.
Now, over 1,000 organisations (Law Firms, Barristers Chambers, Government Departments and Community Legal Centres) are using the platform. 80% of the Victorian Bar has signed up to receive their briefs electronically. In helping to shape the platform they have pioneered positive sustainable change within the legal community.
Below is a video where Stephen and Kendrah discuss their collaboration with eBrief Ready, as well as the key outcomes from their perspective of working closely together.