- Image by septuagesima via Flickr
The answer lies in technology and utilising the internet to simplify procedures and reduce the amount of labour required to produce the product i.e a divorce.
The concept comes from a process called lean manufacturing which is defined in wikpedia as:-
Lean manufacturing or lean production, which is often known simply as “Lean“, it is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, “value” is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. Basically, lean is centered on creating more value with less work.
On the high street this is an anathema to law firms as their business model works around a fee earner ( the producer of work) billing on an hourly rate to a set amount of time. So most firms will expect their fee earners to bill at least 35 hours a week based on their hourly rate. This means that the more work they do, the more they can bill, whereas in a clean process, the more you can produce for the least amount of time and expense , the more profit you can make on your product or service. However there has to be value to the consumer of the product for the process to work, as the consumer will not purchase the product if the product is shoddy or offers little value.
We therefore utilize technology to provide an efficient and lean service which provides value to the consumer. This is done by using software and processes that enable us to produce assembled documents which can then be looked at by paralegals. When they are approved they are uploaded into a system which then allows the client to download and print the documents themselves. At each stage of the process of divorce the client can see what we are doing on their case and where they are in terms of timescales The system also generates automatic letters and e-mails at each stage or upon each update to keep the client continuously informed.
The client and paralegals can also send support messages through the system. This process reduces the time Paralegals are spending on the telephone answering basic questions and spending more time dealing with client’s cases which means that they are dealt with quicker at each stage of the process compared with competitors.
In the back office, we operate very much like a factory production line with specialised roles assigned to each member of staff but all members are trained in at least one other persons role to keep continuity when staff are ill or on holiday.
The ability to process up to 30 plus cases a day comes from organization using the lean method and we continue to learn how this amazing process can be further expanded.
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