Thanks to improvements in IP-related technologies and services, law firms are increasingly using software to manage practices as ‘virtual offices’. Such was the case with Matthew J Booth, who left a large Texas-based general practice firm in 1999 to set up his own specialist IP boutique, Matthew J Booth Solicitors.

‘Technology has advanced by quantum leaps since I first entered the profession,’ he explains, ‘and that allows organisations to connect easily and seamlessly with their employees, clients, suppliers and everyone in their chain of business without needing to invest heavily in real estate.’

However, a number of years after setting up his IP practice, Booth found that his firm had started to outgrow the technology that it had put in place to set up this virtual way of working in the first place. ‘Although it was state of the art at the time, we found that the existing system had begun to hamper our ability to offer clients the broad level of services that we wanted to,’ he says. ‘I found that I was spending more time managing the system than I was performing legal work or business development. We also found our existing vendor particularly unhelpful, not to mention expensive, when we approached it for improvements. We decided that it was time to move on.’

Time for an upgrade

Booth was conscious of the need to upgrade the firm’s IP management system and to seek IP and legal resources to help him effectively manage his company’s growth. Nonetheless, it was a severe collapse of his system architecture that finally prompted him to take action. A major storm took away the software provider’s power leaving the firm without access to its server and client files for five days.

‘We knew that if we didn't act quickly, a similar event in the future could possibly destroy the firm that we had worked so vigorously to build,’ Booth says. He decided that it was time to replace his system software with a more robust alternative, choosing CPA Global’s FoundationIP to fulfil this task. But Booth says that it wasn’t simply because of its solid back-up infrastructure that he settled on FoundationIP. ‘We could also see the potential in the software to further develop our virtual ways of working,’ he says. ‘For example, by giving clients personalised access to their files, or by linking seamlessly into complementary legal support services.

‘It’s exactly that sort of support that will enable us to compete with full-service law firms by offering a first-rate, but more cost-effective alternative,’ Booth adds. ‘We’re no longer restricted by our software; instead, we have been able to extend our firm’s capabilities and improve our market share considerably.’

Picture: Source

This article first appeared in IP Review, issue 28.