The South London Legal Partnership

Case Study
The South London
Legal Partnership
‘Quite apart from the benefits of speed Zylpha will
also save us an enormous amount of time and money,
especially in the areas of storage, printing, DX and couriers.’
South London Legal Partnership, the first four-borough shared legal service in the UK
comprising Merton, Richmond, Sutton and Kingston Councils.
Merton adopted Zylpha Court Bundling in early 2012 and has developed the use of the product
across the four councils in the ensuing two years.
Zylpha has also helped Legal Practice Manager Paul Phelan standardise his Case Management
Solutions providing technical and consultancy services.
The South London Legal Partnership is a role model in modern public service thinking.
Legal Process Automation
What were the challenges?
The primary challenge was driving down cost, this led the search for inefficiencies within the legal
service departments. The key areas of focus were manual tasks, duplication of effort, waste and
inefficient IT systems.
The Solution
Paul Phelan realised that by creating a substantial
Legal Shared Services department he could
radically change the model and the cost
effectiveness by using the best of breed
IT solutions.
Initially Merton and Richmond merged their
Legal Services and Paul set about eliminating
the inefficiencies and waste. Part of that solution
was the Zylpha Bundling and Electronic
Delivery software.
As Paul moved to standardise the Case
Management he selected the Visualfiles solution
from Lexis Nexis. Zylpha consultants helped
with the implementation and the tailoring of the
system to suit the needs of the South London
Legal Partnership.
Once the model had been established Sutton
and Kingston then joined to establish the
South London Legal Partnership.
This model represents one of the most efficient
legal services in the country as well as being
the largest currently consisting of four London
Boroughs and represents the future of local
authority cost efficiencies without
reducing services.
Other areas in London and the South of England
will follow to learn from the process prototyped
by Paul Phelan over the next few years.
Legal Process Automation
Paul Phelan, Legal Practice Manager,
South London Legal Partnership:
“We were familiar with Zylpha from the
standalone document bundling system
that we used at Merton. This had worked
very well in practice, so it was a natural
development to use the latest version of
Zylpha as a standardised system across the
boroughs. With Zylpha in place, preparing
court bundles can be done in a fraction
of the time previously taken and with the
latest SafeDrop system from Zylpha we
have greatly improved our secure document
delivery systems too.
Quite apart from the benefits of speed
Zylpha will also save us an enormous
amount of time and money, especially in the
areas of storage, printing, DX and couriers.
The system is also extremely easy to use
and this allows us to train staff in-house.
In addition, working on a consultancy
basis, Zylpha has helped us a great deal by
integrating these systems with our Visualfiles
case management system. Indeed, their
product knowledge of Visualfiles is highly
impressive and this allows us to tailor
the system, as we need it. I would also
commend Zylpha’s customer service in
general as they are highly responsive
to our requests.”
www.zylpha.com
Zylpha
Founded in 2004 as a Case Management
Consultancy, Zylpha released its first
product in 2010. Since then the company
has gained over 100 clients in the Legal
Profession and the Public Sector.
The last few years have seen substantial
growth. The company has and will continue
to re-invest its profits in new exciting products
for the legal process automation market.
Complete Offerings
We have individual product data sheets on all
our products and services. Just go to our new
website www.zylpha.com and click on Media
Hub/Product Data Sheets.
In the library you will find PDF’s on:
• Electronic Document Bundling
• Client Authorisation and Compliance
• Automating the e-DRS process
• Integrating to the MOJ Claims Portal
• LexisNexis specific Services
What our Clients say about us
Selected Customers
Ashton KCJ Solicitors:
Private Legal Profession Practices
Ashton KCJ
Bates Wells Braithwaite
Bott & Co
Buckles
Horwich Farrelly Solicitors
Igloo Law
Lamport Bassitt
Lester Aldridge
Lyons Davidson Solicitors
Moore Blatch Solicitors
MTA Solicitors LLP
Panonnes (Now Slater and Gordon)
Radiant Law
Speechly Bircham
Weightmans
“Since implementation we have had nothing
but positive feedback from our users and
we are very happy with the product.”
Trudy Hooper
Senior IT Officer, Ashton KCJ, Solicitors
Leicester City Council:
“Zylpha came up trumps for us with their
Bundling and Delivery solutions, as they integrate
seamlessly with our case management system.
We were up and running in no time at all.
The solution does what it claims and does
it well, reducing our printing and distribution
costs while saving us money. We also save time
and money by not having to photocopy, paginate,
re-type or re-edit indexes every time the bundle
changes. Users are more productive and
happier as they can now easily access and
quickly navigate the bundles at the touch of
few buttons, another great time saving factor.
We are seeing less and less cumbersome paper
files and documents leaving our service via
the old post system, and these are only at the
specific request of our old school customers.”
Will Fidoe
Practice Development Manager, Leicester City Council
Legal Process Automation
Public Sector Legal Services Departments
Brighton and Hove Council
Buckinghamshire County Council
Bury Metropolitan Council
East Riding Council
Essex County Council
Leicester City Council
London Borough of Brent Council
London Borough of Croydon
London Borough of Hounslow
London Borough of Lambeth
London Borough of Southwark
Norfolk County Council
Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council
South London Legal Partnership comprising
London Boroughs of Merton, Richmond,
Sutton and Kingston
www.zylpha.com
Bury Metropolitan Borough Council:
“The Zylpha system is extremely easy to use and it’s
now just five clicks to make a bundle; a process that
now can take less than 10 minutes to complete.”
Andy Carlile
Products
Automated Document and Court Bundling
Secure Document Delivery
Automated Electronic Client Authorisation
MOJ Portal Integration (RTA, EL and PL)
Practice Manager of the Bury Legal Services
London Borough of Hounslow:
Partners
“We are very pleased with the service we received
from Zylpha and the Court Bundling product.
Our ongoing savings in both time and cost are
substantial. Typical multi volume bundles that
used to take up to 2 working days can now be
completed in around 3 hours.
LexisNexis
Thomson Reuters
Microsoft
Adobe
Peppermint Technology
Peapod Legal Office
We are now planning to extend our use to include
the production of Council Committee Reports.”
Integration
Gordon Donabie
Legal Department, London Borough of Hounslow
Bott & Co:
“To be breaking the £1million barrier in just a year
since the idea of recovering flight compensation
was conceived, and just 10 months from launching
the department, serves to highlight the efficiencies
in the system Zylpha developed with us.
We have all heard the phrases “that’s impossible”
and “it can’t be done”. That is the point at which
we turned to Zylpha.”
Paul Hinchliffe
Case Management
LN Visualfiles
TR Elite Envision
Peppermint
SOS Connect
Peapod Legal Office
LN SolCase
Matter and Document
TR Elite MatterSphere
HP Worksite
CMIS Compatible DMS
Other
Microsoft Sharepoint
Adobe Echosign
Managing Partner, Bott & Co, Solicitors
Zylpha Limited
Poles Copse
Poles Lane
Otterbourne
Winchester
Hampshire
SO21 2DZ
+44 (0)1962 658881
Legal Process Automation
www.zylpha.com

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